


Of Mohawk Braids and Thieves

by FallenAngel10086



Series: Jumping Universes [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Dionysus isn't much better, F/M, Gen, Kronos is the worst, Language, Mental Health Issues, Platonic Soulmates, Psychological Torture, Underage Drinking, Vague Mentions of Self-Harm, the major character death is in canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-07-10 10:46:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 54,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6981217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallenAngel10086/pseuds/FallenAngel10086
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She has fought this war at least four times by now, and she doesn't know why she's stuck in this loop. She's done, and she wishes that she could find the strength to just walk away.</p><p>OR</p><p>Only the right changes can be made, but she'll never know them until she stays.</p><p>OR</p><p> </p><p>"Ugh," she slammed her head back against the door, "Why do you have to be so weird?"</p><p>"I think the better question is, why are you talking to yourself?" a voice said from across the room.</p><p>Her eyes flew open and landed on her latest intruder. "You gods have seriously got to stop showing up unannounced," she said after she bit back the scream and the scathing sarcasm that were her first two responses. "I mean really, one day I'm going to go into cardiac arrest from fright, and then who are you going to stalk... I mean annoy... I mean, talk to."</p><p>Poseidon pinned her with a flat, unimpressed look.</p><p>"Yeah, I think I'm going to stick with 'stalk'," she decided after a minute of him glaring at her, "And I don't know why you're so pissed," she said, "I'm here to help your son after all."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the girl who chased the rabbit, drank the wine, and took the pill

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer - Why would Rick be posting fanfiction? Seriously, he'd just make another series for us to buy. (If you didn't get the sarcasm, I don't own anything you recognize.)
> 
> Notes - Now, I made up Solara, but I personally would never call this a self-insert story. I suppose that you could argue that it is, but the only thing I share with my character is that I love music, read: Solara is much more of a bad-ass than I could ever be.
> 
> The song the chapter title comes from is 'Her Name Is Alice' by Shinedown.
> 
> I'm going to aim for weekly updates, but it may end up being every other week, or monthly if I get a job.

Being a jumper wasn't the bad part about her life. It was the semi-immortality that came with it. Oh she could be killed, but she hasn't aged since she made her first jump. Well, she got dragged to a different universe and landed right in front of a pissed off Dionysus. Seriously, she still wasn't sure how she had lived through his anger and paranoia.

Solara could feel the familiar sensation of falling through the void before she landed with a hard thump. Groaning in pain she stood up and checked to make sure that she still had all of her weapons. She could already hear the growls of hellhounds not too far away, and as tired as she was of fighting a war over and over, she wasn't going to let herself die from a hellhound.

"Alright Solara," she said to herself, and she had given up on trying to not talk to herself about two decades ago. "Let's go kill some monsters, and then figure out how far back you are."

In the two minutes she she had taken to check her weapons she had already been soaked by the rain. Unamused with the way her day had been going so far she took off in the direction of the hellhounds at a fast pace. She was quite looking forward to killing the stupid things.

She cursed wildly when she caught up to the hellhounds. It wasn't just two or three, but an entire pack of them, and they were being led by the furies. She could see a few of the other nasty monsters thrown in the mix for variety, but she knew what night this was. She hated this night, because she could never change the outcome.

Luke's resentment stemmed from this night.

She readied her bow and ran faster towards the horde of monsters. Solara managed to take out three of the smaller hellhounds and one of the other monsters before they noticed her. Very few of them actually went after her, but it was enough to make her veer to the left as she ran closer. She was hoping to catch up to the group that she knew was in front of the monsters, but knew that she now needed to go on the defensive.

Shooting a couple of the hellhounds that had decided to focus on her Solara tried to run faster. It wasn't easy, she was already tired from what she had been doing before she jumped here, but she knew that she needed to get to the top of the hill that was getting closer. Though she could actually see the group of demigods and the satyr now.

'Come on Solara, you can do this,' she thought, not having the breath to say it out loud. She was actually about halfway passed the monsters, but she was still being slowed down by the few breaking off to try and kill her. She made a flying leap over the fence and used the jumps momentum to push her up the hill faster than if she had stopped to climb over it. 'Huh, track paid off after all,' she mused before turning her attention back to the fight.

"Go on ahead!" the black haired girl yelled.

Solara winced at the resignation in her tone. She knew that feeling, and she hated it. As much as she knew that Thalia wanted to let the monsters over-run her, she also knew that this was where Luke had actually begun to turn away from the gods. Not that she blamed him for that, but Solara was tired of fighting the same damn war again and again. It had gotten old fast.

She would have sighed sadly if she had the breath to do so when she saw Luke drag Annabeth over the top of the hill. The girl was screaming at Thalia to follow them, and even Grover was looking back constantly at Thalia. Solara shook her head and shot another arrow at an approaching hellhound, but her moment of watching the demigods had cost her. She felt like her wrist had been encased in liquid fire, and the next thing she knew she was flying through the air.

She screamed when she landed hard on her left leg. It collapsed beneath her, and she knew that it had broken again. Gritting her teeth she shifted around so that she could still shoot the monsters down, and noticed that she was now at the top of the hill with Thalia below her, in-between her and the monsters. She shot off three arrows in rapid succession, and gestured for Thalia to run up the hill while she shot them.

Surprisingly she did run up to her. Solara grinned to herself as she shot one of the furies, she'd pay for that later she knew, but damn was it satisfying.

"You should go," Thalia said to her after she dusted the latest monster that had managed to avoid Solara's arrows.

Solara snorted quietly, and there was no way for Thalia to have heard it, but she did give her a look that Solara couldn't quite figure out. "I'm about 95% sure that I broke my leg when I landed," she said and shot off another arrow, "So, there will be no running for me... Maybe some frantic crawling, but..."

"Then you should do some frantic crawling," Thalia said.

Solara rolled here eyes. "Not quite yet," she muttered to herself, and shot her last five arrows. Groaning she turned to drag herself across the camp's boundary line, but as she was turning one of the last hellhounds came up behind her and slashed at her unprotected back.

Solara screamed again when she felt the hellhound's claws slicing through the flesh of her back, and fell forward onto the ground. When it didn't follow up with a killing blow she turned slightly to see Thalia standing closer to her than she was before. Solara watched as Thalia tried her best, but she could see immediately that her best just wasn't going to cut it.

She saw it too late, and she yelled out too late. Thalia turned too late, and her block never got a chance to get up where it needed to be. Solara did her best to block out Luke's and Annabeth's screams of denial, and she could only watch as Thalia fell down next to her.

"You should have left when I told you to," Thalia gasped out, "Now we're both going to die."

Solara laughed without feeling any humor. "At least we're going out fighting," she said. Solara knew that Thalia wasn't going to die, but she wasn't sure if she was going to survive the next five minutes. She and Thalia watched in resignation as the monsters circled around them, and just as they lunged in for the kill there was a flash of lightning that blinded and deafened Solara.

She came to a few minutes later with a pine tree next to her where Thalia had laid, and monster dust still floating through the air. She saw a flurry of motion out of the corner of her eye and tried to turn to see what was happening. As soon as she tried to move though there were hands restraining her.

She saw curly brown hair and bright grey eyes, and relaxed into the hands that were gently guiding her over onto a stretcher. She frowned when it looked like the girl who was rolling her over was trying to talk to her. Her pain filled mind thought that the girl looked familiar, but she wasn't quite sure what her name was. The brown haired girl's hands glowed briefly and Solara felt her pain diminish slightly. Daughter of Apollo then, but it still didn't help.

Solara blinked when the girl tried to talk to her again, and was starting to look worried. "Can't hear anything," she tried to say, but she wasn't sure how it came out.

The brown haired girl frowned, but nodded a second later. She turned to say something to someone next to her, then she turned back to Solara and said two words slowly. 'Brace yourself.'

Solara nodded to indicate that she had gotten the message. She closed her eyes and tried to keep her muscles relaxed as much as possible. If anything her long life had taught her, it was that tensing your muscles really only added to the pain of moving, or being moved, while injured. She grimaced when she was picked up, but for the most part she was able to keep quiet as she was being taken to the Big House to be treated.

'Fuck it,' she thought as she began to slip into unconsciousness, 'I want a nap.'

*~S~*

When Solara woke up a couple of days later she groaned at the sight that she saw.

'Here we go again,' she thought, 'As if I can control the fact that I've been jumping universes since I was seventeen.'

"Let me guess," she started out sarcastically after she drank the water that was in the glass on her bedside table. "You want answers as to why I showed up out of freaking nowhere, and what am I doing here?"

The four gods in the room blinked at her before settling in on their different reactions to her sarcasm. Dionysus just rolled his eyes and turned back to his magazine, Apollo just shrugged and nodded, meanwhile Athena was frowning at her, and Zeus was scowling at her. She did notice that he wasn't outright glaring though, and thought that it might have something to do with the fact that she had tried to help Thalia.

Solara shrugged the thought away, it really wasn't that important. "Well, I've been reluctantly jumping universes for years now, and I can't control the where, how, and when part of it... As for why." She snorted and snarled wordlessly before she spoke again. "Well, I'd freaking love to know that too, so if any of you figure that shit out... Let me know?"

The four gods were silent as they traded looks at her mini rant.

"She's telling the truth," Apollo offered eventually.

Solara tried not to roll her eyes at that, she really did. She failed to stop it. "What use would lying be?" she muttered to herself knowing full well that they would hear. She didn't care, because the next thing that was going to come up was whether she should be allowed to live or not, and this routine got old the first time it happened.

"Should she be allowed to live father?" Athena asked proving her right.

Solara rolled her eyes harder and gazed longingly at Dionysus's magazine. "Your other universe selves left me live," she tossed out as she debated the odds of Dionysus actually sharing the magazine. She doubted he would, he only would if she had something to offer him, and right now she didn't.

Though he was smirking at her. He probably figured out that she was too damn used to the whole question and answer part of jumping universes to be afraid of dying at their hands. He would be right, not that she'd ever tell them that. The gods tended to get whiny when she didn't act like she was afraid of them. Weirdos.

"So, whose kid are you?" Apollo asked while Zeus and Athena were busy staring at her like she was from another planet. Though she might as well be.

Solara snorted. "Wow, you ask that like I know the answer." And she needed to tone down on the anger. "I have a theory, but I stopped caring about it about thirty years ago."

"You're seventeen."

"Sure I am," Solara shrugged, "But I'm also... fuck." Solara looked away from them all and tried to do some quick math in her head. "Fuck if I know anymore, my birthday has changed too many times to keep track." She just decided to make a guess, "Maybe around seventy? No idea."

"You mean you haven't aged since your first jump?" Zeus finally spoke.

Solara blinked up at him, then she shook her head. "My best guess, I'll only age when I finally get passed the moment my first jump was made... Which is about ten years from now, more or less."

"She is a real jumper then," Athena said making Solara look at her in confusion.

"Eh?" Apollo asked.

"Jumpers are rare. About as rare as soul-mates."

Solara felt her eyebrow begin to twitch. After seventy-ish years she was just now hearing this? Someone was going to pay, in blood.

"Please continue," she said as politely as she could when Athena paused longer than she could stand.

The politeness caused everyone to stare at her again.

"No one actually knew, and or told me, about this before," she said defensively.

Dionysus went back to his magazine while the other three seemed to hold a debate of glares and scowling. Solara watched for a few minutes before she sighed in irritation and got up from the bed. She limped her way over to the bathroom, only pausing long enough to gather up her clothes that had been cleaned for her. She glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone had noticed her leaving. Only Dionysus had, and she just arched an eyebrow at his speculative gaze. He nodded after a moment and she flashed him a smirk before she slipped into the bathroom.

After the door shut she heard the others actually start to talk out loud. Solara shook her head in annoyance and turned on the shower. If they didn't want to tell her then she'd live with the decision. Be pissed off about it, but she'd live. Possibly try and sneak into a library somewhere so that she could try and look up whatever it was that they wouldn't tell her. Solara grinned at that thought, because that might actually be fun to do.

Looks like she had some back-up plans to make.

*~S~*

Dionysus was the only one left in the room when she came out of the bathroom an hour later. Yeah, she took an extra long shower, sue her.

"You are supposed to stick around for a week before you're allowed to leave," he said not looking up at her. "Also, the book is for you, but I suggest not reading it."

"Why?" she asked as she walked back over to the bed where the book was laying.

"Jumpers live cursed lives," he said and this time he looked at her with serious eyes. "The last jumper that came to this universe came over a thousand years ago... He failed in whatever his goal was. The curse is that you can't know what you're supposed to do until you give up and try to walk away. You can't fake it either, you have to truly give up on whatever you think your task is before you can find out the truth."

"So I have to hit rock bottom before I can do what I'm supposed to do?" Solara questioned without actually needing an answer from him. "Great... You would think I'd be used to this kind of shit by now." She muttered a few other profanities before she picked up the book. Solara glared at it before she sighed and set it back down. "Damnit. Fine, I –"

"Keep the book," Dionysus cut her off.

"You said not to read it."

"Not right now," he amended, "Sunshine said that you'd read it at some point, but he said that reading it before you were ready to would cause you to fail again. He's apparently developed a soft spot for you, and doesn't want you to have to make another jump."

Solara grimaced at the migraine that was beginning to develop. "Okay," she sighed and picked up the book. "So, out of curiosity, why do I have to stick around for a week?"

"Cabin eleven jumper," Dionysus said instead of answering her question, "And no more questions, you can leave in a week, be happy you're allowed that."

"Got it," she said as he walked out of the room. She sighed in exhaustion before she went around the room picking up her things and putting them into her bag. The bag had been given to her two jumps ago by Hecate, and it was nearly bottomless and weightless. Sometimes it paid off to do gods favors, and Solara would never regret her choice that led her to getting the bag.

She put almost all of her weapons in the bag, and had to grin when she was once again shown proof that the bag was pretty much indestructible. It held pretty much her entire life, so the indestructible bit was more than a bonus. She slid the book down one of the sides, and let a pile of clothes cover it up. She got the feeling that she would know when to read it, even if it wasn't anytime soon.

Solara slipped the one dagger she left out into her boot. She might not need to be constantly armed while in the camp, but she was far too used to having something on her to go around without anything. She picked up her bow sadly, she was going to need a new quiver before she left, and held the bow in her left hand as she tapped on three of the small carvings that she had added to her bow over the years. The bow shrank and became a bracelet that fit on her wrist snugly with a chain that had a sizable piece of Queen's Coral hanging on the end. The coral had been carved into the shape of a music note. Solara smiled sadly at the sight of it, she missed those days of living on the beach, not doing anything more than playing her violin or guitar, and spending hours upon hours with Triton. They had actually become quite close in those ten years that she had been hiding from the world.

Gods she missed him so much. The pain of never getting to see him again was almost physical in nature. It was funny, he was the closest she had ever felt when it came to having a sibling, and they both were pretty certain that her father hadn't been Poseidon. That hadn't changed anything though, and they both had a theory that they were supposed to be platonic soul-mates. Either that hadn't been true, or fate just loved to fuck her over, because here she was, and he was unreachable as far as she knew.

"What will hurt worse?" she asked the coral, "Starting over, or never seeing you again?"

The coral didn't answer, not that it could, or that she expected it to.

Shaking away the thoughts that were clouding her mind she picked up her bag and left the room. She nodded to Chiron and Dionysus on her way out of the Big House, and then made her way to cabin eleven.

A few people were pointing and whispering as she passed, but she had gotten used to being different years ago. Ignoring them she made a pit stop at the fire-pit in the middle of the commons. She genuinely like Hestia, so she usually went out of her way to speak with her when she saw her.

"Hello," Hestia said, "So you're the new jumper that has my brother all worried... I really don't see why." Hestia's eight-year-old appearance helped take away the insult in her words, as did her tone.

Solara snorted then started laughing. "Wow," she said when she calmed down, "I'd be offended by that if I knew that you had meant it that way."

Hestia just smiled at her. "False jumpers usually cause a lot of damage."

"I know," Solara said and shifted her gaze over to the fire, "I was pretty hysterical when my first jump happened, and I'm pretty sure that that was the reason I made it out of the interrogation alive." She scoffed at a random thought that popped into her head. "Of course, I handled the second one only marginally better."

"You were quite sarcastic this time if Apollo is to believed."

"He is," Solara muttered, "Granted, I had been hoping to at least shower before being stared at... Also, waking up with four people who can kill you faster than you can say 'damn', is kind of scary, and would put anyone on the defense."

Hestia nodded after a minute to mull that over. "I can see that," she admitted.

"Sorry," Solara winced, "I think I still haven't quite turned off the sarcasm yet."

Hestia laughed. "Don't worry about it," she said, "I'm used to far worse than that."

Solara glanced at her, but seeing that she was serious she smiled at her. "Thanks."

Hestia just smiled at her. "I'll see you again Solara," she said, "Your path crosses with many of the gods, and you could bring us much if you chose to."

"Family can be very important," Solara agreed, "Unless they're toxic, then by all means I ignore them, I have enough issues."

Hestia laughed again before she disappeared.

"Nice talking to you auntie," she whispered. Then she got up and headed over to cabin eleven. There were a few conversations she wanted to have with Luke before she left. She also kind of wanted to talk to Annabeth, but had a feeling that the girl wouldn't be interested in listening to her before the week ended. "No rest for the weary," she muttered to herself before she opened the door to the cabin.

Everyone inside of the cabin stopped and turned to her. She could pick out Luke easily, and hoped that he had been claimed already. She didn't see Annabeth and guessed that she had been out for longer than she had thought, because she knew from past experience that Annabeth had been claimed within twenty four hours of coming to camp.

"Regular or undetermined?" someone asked.

"Undetermined," she said with a shrug, "But don't worry, "I'll be out of your hair soon enough."

"Do you really think that you're going to be claimed so soon?" some else scoffed.

"No," she scoffed right back, "I'm thinking that I've got shit to take care of out in the real world, and I'm only going to be allowed to leave as soon as I've been medically cleared to."

There were few murmurings at that, but she could see that no one was going to argue against that. A girl about her age stepped forward. "Welcome to cabin eleven then," she said, "You can have that space over there by Luke." She pointed to where Luke was sitting against the wall, and while there was only barely enough room for the two of them in the cleared area, Solara thought that it was the best place in the world.

She didn't say anything though. She just nodded and made her way over to Luke and slid down the wall next to him. She offered him a small, tired smile, but decided that she'd let him decide if he wanted to talk to her.

"Thank you," he said quietly, so quietly that she almost missed it.

"What do you mean?" she asked and used the same amount of volume that he had. If he didn't want anyone listening in, then who was she to argue.

"For helping... for helping my friend," he said, "Thalia wouldn't have lasted as long as she did without you there to help her."

Solara sighed, "I'm just sorry that I couldn't do more... and sorry that she died trying to help me."

Luke shook his head. "She wanted to die. I knew her well enough to know that she hadn't wanted to live like a hunted animal... Thalia also did what she did best. She was helping someone else... Or well, fighting to protect someone else."

"She sounds amazing," Solara said. She sighed and reached out hesitantly towards his hand. Lightly resting hers on top of his she spoke again. "You sound like you were really close to each other."

"We were just friends," Luke said, and he was staring at their hands, but he didn't move his away.

"Doesn't mean you can't be close," Solara defended, "There was someone that I considered my brother, but we both knew for a fact that we weren't related in the slightest."

"What happened to him?" Luke asked.

Solara had to blink furiously to hold back tears. "He died," she said. While it might not be strictly true, the barrier that separated her from Triton might as well be death. She had also cared for Luke as a brother once upon a time, and she had actually watched him die a couple of times, so she was _totally_ lying to him.

Yeah, she didn't believe that line either.

"Does the pain ever go away?" he asked.

She shook her head, "No," she said, "I won't lie to you and tell you that one day it won't hurt anymore. Time, cannot in fact, heal all wounds. The pain becomes less, and one day you'll wake up, and her death will not be the first thing you think of. You won't ever forget her, I can promise you that, but eventually the memories won't be as painful. You'll be able to think back on the good times without it hurting so much that someone ripping out your heart can't possibly feel worse. You'll be able to smile when you talk about her, but the pain won't ever fully go away. Hell, you may not want it to after awhile, because the pain reminds you that she mattered."

"She does matter," Luke said more to himself than to her.

"And that is why it hurts so much right now," Solara said, "Let yourself feel the pain for now... I've, sadly, found that it helps the grieving process. The sooner you let the pain in, the sooner you can remember to good memories without it hurting."

"You've lost more than just a surrogate brother."

Solara nodded. "Yeah... So many people die around me," she frowned and shook her head, "I swear it's like I'm cursed, because no matter what I do, the people I try to save always end up dying."

"Is that why you're leaving?" he asked.

"Partly," she admitted, "I can be a loner so much easier out there. To just blend into the crowd, and let everyone pass you by. For me, that's better than watching people I care about die."

"You'd rather be on your own," Luke nodded, "I can understand that."

Solara gave him another sad smile. "Maybe we'll see each other again one day," she said, "But for now, I need to be by myself... I still have my own grieving to do."

Luke nodded and managed a small, sad smile of his own. "Well, you know where I'll be."

"That I do," Solara said, and she did, she knew exactly where he was going to be.


	2. but grace was made for those who don't deserve it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five years later Solara gets some answers, and she promises to get him to camp safely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer - See chapter one. I don't own the songs Solara sings in this chapter.  
> Notes - Crap! I forgot to say last chapter that I didn't own the Queen Coral. So I'm saying it now, I don't own the Queen Coral, it belongs to Felicity Dream (FF.Net). (Which you should go read and lover her stuff, and leave her wonderful presents in her review box.)
> 
> Songs Solara sings:  
> Sucks To Be You by Emma Blackery  
> Perfect by Emma Blackery (Yeah, I was listening to her music on repeat during this chapter, you should too, its fantastic. Plus her new EP just came out, and you can listen to the songs on her youtube channel.)

_Five Years Later..._

She had been back in New York for nearly a week. Solara had forgotten how crazy the city was, and she was glad that she had decided to stay at Montauk until it was time for Percy to go to camp. Why was she staying at Montauk? Well, she missed the beach, for the last five years she had been living in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, and had been avoiding going to the beach at all costs.

"I feel like I need to go somewhere," she muttered to herself. Yeah, living another five years by herself hadn't helped her habit of talking to herself, she was actually pretty sure that it had made it worse. Not that she cared all that much. She might care once she was around people on a more permanent basis, but for now, she'd happily talk all day. Anything to keep her going insane.

To be honest, she wasn't all that sane to begin with, but with Kronos trying to whisper in her ears, she wasn't in the mood to hear anyone but herself talk to her. She was actually kind of pissed that Kronos was targeting her this time, and if this was Luke's doing, then she was going to kick his ass when she saw him next.

Sighing Solara rolled out of bed and got dressed. She had a few questions for the Fates, and she had a feeling that she was going to get some answers for once. Maybe not the answers she wanted, but answers none the less. She wandered out to her car and got in to drive to where their fruit stand was going to be set up for the day. She would also be able to get her first glimpse of Percy in this universe. Okay, that was probably her entire reason for going on this little field trip of hers, but she also had some questions for the Fates, and if she could kill two birds with one stone, then who was she to deny herself that?

The drive was actually pretty uneventful. She was jamming out to loud rock music as she drove down the highway, and she was kind of glad that her old smart-phone was still able to work as a music player. She would have cried if she had lost all of her music that she had put on there before her last jump.

"So you go tell my friends that you wanna make amends, but I don't have time for that. So I guess that it sucks to be you. And you go and make the page that, your ex-girlfriend's a bitch, and I'll happily take the hit. 'Cause I guess that it sucks, I guess that it sucks to be you!" Solara belted out as she drove. She was almost to where she needed to be. She might be a bit more bitter than she was when she showed up in this universe five years ago, but Dionysus had told her that giving up on what she wanted was the only way to stop the jumping. So she had given up on her goal to save Luke. She still cared deeply for him, and wished with all her being that saving him was an option, but she had given up on being the one to save him.

That was actually why she had left camp five years ago. Being told to give up on someone was one thing, but when it came down to actually doing it, she couldn't if she had stayed around him. She didn't want to be around him if all she could do was watch him make all of the wrong choices for all of the wrong reasons. She had done it enough times by now to know that nothing she did or said was going to change his mind.

Finally spotting the fruit stand, and the broken down bus on the other side of the highway, Solara pulled her car over to the side of the road. She took a deep breath before she got out of her car and headed over to the Fates.

All three looked over at her as she approached. She got the feeling of being looked through, and as uncomfortable as it was, she would stand it if it got her something in the end.

_"We've been waiting,"_ a voice said in her head.

Solara shivered suddenly feeling cold. "Had a late start," she said lamely. She wanted to be sarcastic to cover up how scared she was, but the Fates were just too damn creepy to hide how they affected her. She cringed when she saw the bright electric blue socks that they were knitting. "I can't save him, can I?" she asked sadly her eyes never leaving the socks.

They didn't answer her, but she guessed that that was her answer.

Nodding she turned to walk away.

_"Wait,"_ the voice said again, _"We have something for you, and a message."_

"Okay," she said and turned back to them. The one on the end closest to her was holding out a basket of apples and apricots. Solara reached out to take a hold of it, and when it was in her grasp she held the basket close not wanting to drop anything. "Thank you," she said.

_"You have given up on the boy,"_ the voice said in her mind again, _"You are ready to read the book."_

Solara nodded her understanding. This time when she turned to leave they didn't stop her. She set the basket of fruit down gently in the front seat of her car, and by the time she got back into her car the Fates had pulled out the scissors to cut the yarn that she knew was Luke's lifeline. The Fates were alternating looking at her and Percy across the highway, and when they cut the yarn Solara heard it in her car just as she knew Percy heard it across four lanes of traffic.

She looked over at Percy sadly. The poor boy had no idea how much pain he was going to go through, and she knew that there was no way to save him from his fate. Just like she knew that there was no way to save Luke from his. It seemed that three of them were tried together for now, and Solara hoped that she would be able to do whatever it was to stop the jumping. No more running for her, it was now time for her to face her own fate.

"Ready or not, here we go," she said, then started her car. She needed to get back to Montauk before Sally and Percy made it there.

*~S~*

Solara sometimes felt like a creepy stalker. Then there were times that she actually _was_ a creepy stalker. Like when she did an insane amount of research to figure out which cabin the Jacksons always went to when they visited Montauk. Honestly, she just wanted to keep en eye on the kid and make sure he got to camp in one piece, but her conscience just said that she was a weirdo and needed to stay away from children.

And this way why she knew that she'd never be happy in a relationship with a mortal ever again. Even demigods would not be able to handle her baggage, and they were a screwed up bunch themselves.

"Wow," she muttered to herself as she parked her car near the cabin that she had rented, "I need professional help."

Solara eyed the basket of fruit before she picked it up to bring it into the cabin. Being given something by any immortal could be dangerous if you didn't accept it, and she wondered if the fruit given to her by the Fates would be safe to eat. She wondered if she even wanted to eat it at all.

Solara looked around her cabin in regret. She had liked staying there, and she was sad to be leaving that night. She sighed and began to pack all of her things that had somehow gotten littered around the cabin. The only thing she left out was the book that she had gotten five years ago. It was time to read it, and Solara would happily admit that she was scared to. The book would only confirm the fact that she couldn't save Luke, and possibly tell her something about herself that she wasn't ready to face.

"You've packed up everything you possibly could," a voice said behind her.

Solara yelped and reflexively threw the closest knife that she saw in the direction of the voice. She cringed seconds after when she saw who it was that had decided to visit her. Apollo had decided to show up for the first time in five years, and she had just thrown a knife at his head.

"Sorry," she said wincing.

Apollo had just plucked the knife out of the air and was staring at it like he hadn't seen something like it before. "Admittedly, I probably shouldn't have scared you like that."

Solara gave him a surprised look.

He snorted at her look. "Even I know not to sneak up on demigods who are older than thirty. They tend to have the best reflexes, and are paranoid enough to leave weapons lying around like you did."

"We're a paranoid bunch," she agreed. She took a deep breath to calm herself down. "Is there a reason you decided to drop in?" she asked still somewhat irritated.

Apollo shrugged. "You died in this universe," he said, "The name 'Solara' was familiar, and I needed to see if I was right."

"Right about what?" Solara asked warily.

"If you were my daughter," he said, and while she appreciated the bluntness of his statement, she also kind of wanted to punch him in the face.

"That's nice," she said, "Is that all?"

Apollo snorted. "One of the few who actually inherit my temper, and it's the one who's pissed at the world."

"Well, when life beats you down," she muttered, but she stopped before she finished the thought. "But that's neither here nor there. So, you're my father? Should have guessed, my name kind of gives it away." Solara shook her head, "Why does it matter?" she asked, "I've gone nearly a hundred years without knowing this, not confirmed anyway, and I can't see how knowing helps me in anyway."

"Does it make you any less pissed off?" he asked giving her a knowing look.

Solara opened her mouth to say something sarcastic as per her usual responses, but then she actually thought about the question. It did actually make her less pissed at the world. "Kind of," she muttered reluctantly.

A part of her was still pissed that she hadn't been claimed by him back in her first universe, but she had already held onto that anger for years. She was more than ready to let that anger go, and she kind of wanted to not be angry so much anymore. Sure there were things she was still mad as hell about, but the thing with Apollo was long passed it's point of letting go and forgetting about.

"Fine," she said when he still hadn't said anything, "It helps, and it's nice to know for sure. I just need a little while longer to really get over my anger."

Apollo shrugged, "As far as I'm concerned, you're more than a grown woman, and you can be pissed as long as you like. Your life hasn't been easy from what I can tell, and I know that the jumping has made it so that you try not to get too attached to people."

"You don't want to admit that other universe you might have been an asshole?" she asked, and there was her sarcasm.

Apollo shrugged. "That too," he said before he disappeared.

Solara snorted, "Nice seeing you too dad," she muttered before she picked up the knife that he had dropped. She shoved it into her boot, and then went over to her bed where she had left the book. "Time to read," she said to herself before she cracked it open.

*~S~*

The book, as it turned out, was less of a book than she had been thinking it was for the last five years. It only had two name written in it while the rest of the pages were utterly blank. Solara threw it across the room when she saw what was inside the book.

"Five years," she snarled, "I held onto this thing for five years... For _this_?"

This, being the names 'Hermes' and 'Triton', written in a fancy script, but nothing else to go with them. She wasn't as surprised as she thought she thought she would be to see their names, but it was the lack of anything else that pissed her off. So her destiny was intertwined with theirs, fine, she'd do it. Whatever 'it' was.

Still fuming she stuffed the book into her bag and decided to go for a walk. A nice long walk with loud angry music on repeat. Looks like 'Sucks To be You' was going to be her theme song for the rest of the night. Which she could do, but she hadn't been lying earlier, she was tired of being angry all of the time. She'd already had her angry phase done and over with, and to her shame, that time she had sided with Luke and Kronos. At the time she had been telling herself that it was so that she might be able to save him, but the truth of the matter was that she was just too angry to want to try and help the gods that time around. The titans had still lost the war though, and she had jumped before the gods could get around to killing her. The only time she had actually been happy to jump.

Snorting at her train of thought, Solara put in her earbuds and walked out of the door. She was singing along under her breath as she walked, and then decided to take her shoes off and walk through the water a bit. It was too cold to swim in that was for sure, but she was hoping that the feel of the water running over her feet would help calm her down. It took about four hours, but it did eventually help her, or maybe her anger had just burned out.

"I used to spend my time a the mirror just picking at my skin. Praying for the day I lose some weight, so I could be pretty or thin, but who was I to know, that all I needed was some hope. It starts getting better when you use your voice! Scream above the noise! That you're prefect as you are, even when times are hard. You are brave, and even if they say that you'll never go far, 'cause you're dumb, skinny, or scarred. You're perfect the way you are." Solara hadn't realized how loudly she had been singing until she saw Percy and his mother staring at her. That was then it clicked on how long she had been walking along the beach. She reached up and pulled out her earbuds. "Sorry," she called out to them, "I'll just go now." she turned and quickly fled the awkward staring. She really hadn't meant to stumble across them before Grover had showed up that night.

She ran all of the way back to her cabin. She cringed when she remembered the awkward staring, and wondered how she had forgotten to turn before she had gotten too close to them. Granted once she had calmed down she had sort of stopped paying as much attention to her surroundings as she had been when she was in a rage. She had been aware enough to know that there were people nearby, but they had been filed under 'non-threatening' and she had proceeded to ignore them.

"Ugh," she slammed her head back against the door, "Why do you have to be so weird?"

"I think the better question is, why are you talking to yourself?" a voice said from across the room.

Her eyes flew open and landed on her latest intruder. "You gods have seriously got to stop showing up unannounced," she said after she bit back the scream and the scathing sarcasm that were her first two responses. "I mean really, one day I'm going to go into cardiac arrest from fright, and then who are you going to stalk... I mean annoy... I mean, talk to."

Poseidon pinned her with a flat, unimpressed look.

"Yeah, I think I'm going to stick with 'stalk'," she decided after a minute of him glaring at her, "And I don't know why you're so pissed," she said, "I'm here to help your son after all."

"People used to treat us with respect you know," he pointed out, but then looked her over again, "But you probably gave up on respecting us around the time you were fifty."

"You have no idea," she muttered, "Then again, maybe you do," she added when he just smirked at her. "You know," she said, "Most people consider it polite to knock before entering another person's home." She actually kind of liked Poseidon, but that was not going to save him from being told not to randomly show up in a person's house.

He shrugged like it didn't matter, but she swore that she saw a hint of shame in his eyes. "I'll remember that," he said, and she saw that he actually would.

"Is there are reason you came here?" she asked hesitantly after a moment of awkward silence.

"Do you know who actually stole –"

"Let me stop you there," she said quickly. "I have a damn good idea, but if I do or say anything then things could end up worse than the possibilities that I already know about... and that is something that I don't even want to think about." Solara shuddered at the thought of things being worse.

"You've tried to change things before?' Poseidon asked.

"And failed in a horrific way," she said, "Almost got countless people killed, and I'm not going there again."

Poseidon eyed her then nodded. "You said that you were going to look aft er my son?"

"Not that he'll need it," she said with a grin, "The kid has a knack for surviving, and, well, for being a general bad-ass."

Poseidon just arched an eyebrow at her.

"Yes," she sighed, "The plan was to look out for him... No one can take a joke these days." Solara pouted at the god before her and made her way over to the basket of fruit and plucked out an apple and an apricot. "Fruit?" she offered holding them out to Poseidon.

He blinked at the offering, then shrugged and plucked the apricot from her hand. "Do you know how long its been since someone had offered me something without wanting something in return?"

"How do you know that I don't?" she asked jokingly and took a bite out of her apple. She moaned at the taste, it was a pink lady apple, and she had to remember to say thank you to the Fates. As creepy as they were, they had still given her her favorite apples. "Forget that last comment," she said her mouth still full of apple, "I'm going to be over here eating this delicious basket of fruit."

Poseidon blinked at her again. "You're strange," he eventually said, and ate the apricot she had given him.

Solara snorted but said nothing. She only had a couple of more hours left to enjoy the peace and quiet, and the basket of fruit. They actually didn't speak again for the rest of the time that Poseidon was there, and once he had finished the apricot he had nodded towards her once, and then left her alone again.

Solara decided that the gods were weird. They could be nice and helpful, or annoying and cursing you, but still weird no matter what.

"I'm gonna take a nap," she muttered to herself after she finished her apple. She rinsed off her hands, and then stuck the basket in her tiny fridge hoping that she'd be able to come back to the cabin within a few days to get it and her car. Like hell was she going to let her car get destroyed because Zeus was pissed off. He could destroy Gabe's car, the fat load of shit deserved it for treating Percy and Sally like crap for years.

Pushing her thoughts away Solara collapsed onto her bed. She knew that her night was going to be long and annoying, and she might as well get some rest while she could.

*~S~*

The loud boom of thunder was what woke her a couple of hours later. It was barely a second later when there was another flash of lightning that made the inside of her cabin light up like it was daylight outside. She groaned and rolled out of bed when the light faded and there was another loud boom. She pulled her boots back on, and she'd have to be content with the knife she had stashed in one of them, because she had no desire to be in an accident with either a sword or a quiver full of arrows strapped to her.

Solara grabbed her bag on her way out of the door and slung it over her back. Once she had shut the door behind her, and locked it out of habit, she took off in a dead run. She had promised Poseidon to look after him, and she had no desire to break it. If she were to be honest, she also kind of wanted to see Percy kill the Minotaur. Hearing the stories were one thing, but seeing it would be another.

Solara made it to the Jacksons's cabin the same time as Grover did. She doubled over due to her run through what was shaping up to be a hurricane, and tried her best to catch her breath. She rolled her eyes when Grover stared at her, but when she glared at him he hurriedly started to pound on the door. She had just recovered her breath when Sally threw open the door.

Solara didn't pay too much attention to the conversation that Grover was having with the Jacksons. She had finally heard the Minotaur bellowing in the distance, and really just wished that they would all move faster. Eventually they all got into the car and Sally took off for camp.

Solara had to admit that she found it completely amusing to watch Percy try and reconcile that his best friend was a barnyard animal from the waist down. Then she notice Sally glancing at her from the corner of her eye.

"I promised Percy's father that I'd help him to camp," she said suddenly, but in a low tone so that hopefully only Sally, and maybe Grover, heard her.

Sally seemed to melt with relief.

"So, you and my mom... know each other?" Percy asked, and Solara noted that he was asking her just as much as Grover.

"Nope," she answered before Grover could, "But I've met your father." Sally glared at her, but Solara just shrugged. "What?" he's going to find out soon anyway, and at this point not answering his questions is really not going to help."

"We've never met," Grover cut in, "She knew I was watching you, and keeping tabs on you... Not that I was faking being your friend, I am."

"What are you?"

"That's not important," Grover said making Solara snort in irritation and roll her eyes.

"Not important, from the waist down my best friend is a donkey–"

"Goat!"

Solara snickered. "Kid, I'd be careful, satyrs can be a bit techy when you call them donkeys."

"And what are you?" Percy asked turning to her.

"Half insane, and a pissed off stalkee," she said flippantly. "Though if you want a serious answer then, I'm like you, but I can't honestly tell you who is going to have a worse fate."

"Aren't most stalkees reluctant?" Sally asked at the same as Percy asked about myths.

"I can see why he fell in love with you," Solara said with a grin and turned to Percy. "Were the old ladies at the fruit stand a myth?"

"Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?" Grover finished for her.

"So you admit that there was a Mrs. Dodds!" Percy said with a glare, "And if the old ladies at fruit stand were so important, then why did you stop and talk to them?"

"Because I needed answers, and while I'm like you," Solara sighed, "Percy, I'm also different... My life has been a lot longer and more painful then what you can see on the surface. I needed to know what they could tell me, because, well, because I'm selfish underneath it all... I'm not much better than our parents."

" _Our_ parents?"

"Your father is my father's uncle," she said, "But I can tell you more about that later... What's important is that all the stories are true. Every god and goddess you learned about, every monster that you had nightmares about, all of it is real."

"Why are–" Grover began to speak.

"Because not telling him and telling him aren't going to make damn bit of difference at this point," Solara snapped, "And I'd like to go on the record and say that a demigod knowing about their heritage doesn't actually keep the monsters from sensing them. It's when they start to use their powers that the monsters sense them more, and after your trip to the museum that ship fucking sailed." Once she calmed down she noticed that the other three occupants were staring at her. "Sorry," she said, "For the cussing," she clarified then cringed when she heard that the Minotaur was closer, "Can you please driver faster Mrs. Jackson?"

Sally stomped on the gas pedal. "Honey, I know that this is all confusing, but we don't have time for more answers."

"Got that right," Solara muttered as she fastened her seat belt knowing what was coming next.

"Right now we need to get you to safety," Sally finished eyeing her warily, almost like she was scared to ask why Solara had put her seat belt on.

"Safety?" Percy asked, "Why? Who's after me?"

"Oh, no one much," Grover said, and he was obviously still miffed by the donkey comment, "Just the Lord of the Dead, and some of his blood-thirstiest monsters."

Solara snickered as Sally shouted Grover's name. Then they were making a sudden left and were hurtling down a dark farm road. Solara glimpsed the 'pick your own strawberries' sign and knew that it was coming soon.

"Where are we going?" Percy asked.

"To the summer camp that I told you about," Sally said, and Solara had to feel sorry for the woman, "The one your father wanted you to go to."

"The place you didn't want me to go."

"Percy," Solara said, "Try to make this a bit easier on your mom, yeah? Things are more complicated than she ever thought that they were going to be, and you're in danger right now... We need to get to camp."

"Because some old ladies cut yarn."

"They were the Fates," Solara said and she winced when her voice cracked, "They rarely ever show themselves to demigods. To people like you and I," she said when he looked confused, "And they usually only do it to someone that either they, or someone whose fate is tied directly to your own, is going to die."

"So I'm going to die?"

"I never said that," Solara said, and now she was trying to blink back tears. All she could see were the socks and Luke's eyes. His life was such a cruel joke on the Fates's part. She wished that she could kill them, and she hadn't wanted to kill anyone in a long time.

"But you said–"

"Percy!" Sally said, "Not now."

Solara hadn't even realized that she had lost her battle with the tears when she felt one land on the back of her hand. She ignored the other occupants of the car as she tried to calm down. Not that it was easy to focus on anything other than her rage and pain.

Solara had heard Sally say that there was only one more mile left, and she looked up knowing that they were about to crash. She felt a bit of vindictive glee when she thought about Gabe losing the camaro. She had just tightened her grip on her seat belt when Zeus's lightning bolt hit the car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I'm evil... but that was too good to resist. :)
> 
> Also, I have never been to New York, much less Montauk, so if any details are inaccurate, please just ignore them, they don't come up again at all.
> 
> Song the chapter title comes from is 'Ceasefire' by for King & Country.
> 
> Please leave a friendly comment on your way out. (Or be outraged by the cliffhanger, I can take it.)


	3. don't you dare forget that in the pain you can be brave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer - See chapter one. I also don't own the songs that Solara sings in this chapter.  
> Notes - I have been watching a lot of House M.D. while writing, so some later chapter may reflect that sarcasm. Also, my wrists have decided to start acting up, so my characters suffer due to the physical pain I'm in. (Carpal tunnel is the worst.)
> 
> (One in the morning counts as Thursday, right?)
> 
> Songs Solara sings:  
> Bad Blood by Taylor Swift  
> Ferris Wheel by Emma Blackery  
> Don't Come Home by Emma Blackery  
> Home by Daughtry (It really was only the last line, but I'll put it here.)

_Last Time..._

_Solara hadn't even realized that she had lost her battle with the tears when she felt one land on the back of her hand. She ignored the other occupants of the car as she tried to calm down. Not that it was easy to focus on anything other than her rage and pain._

_Solara had heard Sally say that there was only one more mile left, and she looked up knowing that they were about to crash. She felt a bit of vindictive glee when she thought about Gabe losing the camaro. She had just tightened her grip on her seat belt when Zeus's lightning bolt hit the car._

Solara, having been the only one that who had been bracing for the impact, was the first one to shake off the disorientation that the lightning strike, and subsequent crash, had caused. She blinked the spots from her vision and fumbled slightly with her seat belt. When it refused to unbuckle she just snarled in frustration and pulled her knife out of her boot to cut to strap of the belt. The car was totaled anyway, who was going to notice one cut seat belt?

Well, Gabe probably, but she didn't really care about him.

Solara saw Sally beginning to move next to her, and then she heard Percy groan out 'ow' in the backseat. She didn't need to hear Grover moan 'food', but it was nice to know that everyone did indeed survive the crash. Solara turned to see if she could catch a glimpse of the Minotaur, but froze when she saw hoe close it actually was.

"We need to get out of the car," she said quietly, but the dead serious undertone made Percy and Sally look out to where she was staring.

"Who–"

"Percy," Sally cut her son off, "She's right, you need to go, now."

"Come on kid," Solara said and she had already opened her door as quietly as possible. Sure the Minotaur couldn't see or smell very well, but that didn't mean that they could make a lot of noise and get away with it.

"Not without Grover and my mom!" Percy protested.

"Fine!" Solara hissed, "Just be quick, and be quiet."

As Percy and Sally climbed out of the car, and then dragged Grover out, Solara had took off her bag and opened it to dig out her sword. She would have loved her bow, but it was storming too badly for her to want to doubt her trust in her aim. She also shoved her knife into Percy's hand, "You'll need that," was all she said when he gave her a confused look, "And try not to lose it," she added as an afterthought.

'I really hope he doesn't,' she thought as she followed Percy and Sally up the hill, 'I like that knife, I'd hate to have to replace it.'

They were part way up the hill when the Minotaur threw the car in a fit of rage. Solara grinned viciously a bit, but then turned and urged the others to try and get further up the hill. She ignored the quiet conversation between Percy and his mother about the Minotaur, and when Sally took Grover from Percy she stepped up and took him herself.

"Split up," she ordered, "I'll take him over the ward-line."

Sally nodded at her in thanks then turned to Percy. "Remember what I said."

Solara adjusted her grip on Grover then gritted her teeth and dragged the dead weight up the hill. It took a lot longer than she thought it would, and she had just made it to the crest of the hill when she heard the Minotaur charge somewhere behind her. She looked back to see if she was in the monster's path, and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that she wasn't. Turning back around she dragged Grover a few feet down the hill before she set him down.

After making sure that Grover was going to be okay, Solara ran back up the hill and over the other side in time to see Sally disappear in a flash of light. She winced when she heard Percy scream. She knew that pain, it might have been years since she had lost her own mother, but it hadn't really made the pain of her death go away.

Though she would admit to being slightly envious of Percy, he would get his mother back, and that was unusual in their lives. People might die all of the time, but no one ever managed to get their loved ones back from death.

"Hey, stupid!" Percy was shouting as he waved his red jacket around, "Ground beef!"

"That kid needs better insults," she muttered to herself as she shook her head. She pulled her sword from it's sheath and waited to see what would happen. She knew that Percy could kill the Minotaur by himself, but that didn't mean that he would turn down help. "Wow," she said when he jumped onto the Minotaur's back, she might have known that he had done that, but knowing and seeing were two different things.

Solara scowled when the Minotaur charged right into Thalia's tree. If it wasn't already clear that it was going to die, then doing that just marked it for another death. She snarled and ran towards it even as it was preparing to charge at her. She hadn't even realized that she had been cussing the thing out until she cut off abruptly when Percy broke one of the Minotaur's horns off. "Huh," was all she could say, and then winced when Percy was thrown from the Minotaur's back. She knew that he had hit his head on a rock, but she also knew that since it was raining he'd be fine for the next few minutes. (Or it was the adrenaline, or a mixture of both, she couldn't know for sure.)

Solara rushed forwards while the Minotaur was still recovering from it's horn being snapped off. She managed a deep slash in it's side, but the monster batted her away like a fly and she ended up flying through the air. She rolled with the landing as much as she could with her sword still in her hand. By the time she had gotten back to her feet the Minotaur was rushing Percy again.

Frowning a bit when she realized that Percy must have dropped her knife, because he was using the Minotaur's horn as his weapon, Solara watched as he rolled to the side. The horn was held in one hand, and that arm was stretched out so that the rushing Minotaur would impale itself on his own horn. Not really a bad plan she had to admit, but it didn't make her any happier to know that she'd have to come out and search for her knife in the morning before it could vanish.

Leaving celestial bronze lying around was always a bad idea.

"Come on," Solara said gently as she came up to Percy, "Let's get you and Grover to the Big House."

Percy didn't really reply, and Solara hadn't really expected him to. She noticed that he was weaving a bit as he walked, but it wasn't that bad. He definitely had a concussion, and she was too wore out from her own emotionally taxing day to heal him.

They picked up Grover on their way down the hill into the camp. She was doing most of the carrying, but she didn't mind. Percy had been through a lot in the last few hours. He had more than enough excuses to not be helpful at the moment.

Percy collapsed the moment they made it onto the porch of the Big House. Solara blinked in surprise when the door opened up to reveal Chiron and Annabeth.

"He's the one. He must be," Annabeth said.

Solara arched an eyebrow at that. She ignored what Chiron said to her in return, and followed them inside with Grover. He would be fine in a bit, but she was getting tired of carrying him.

"Jumper," Dionysus said from behind her once she set him down.

"Yes sir?" she said sweetly as she turned to face him.

"Wait in the front room for me," he ordered.

"Kay," she agreed with a yawn. She had a feeling that she'd be sleeping there until morning if he didn't come out soon. She moved past him slowly and made her way back out to the front room. She sat on the couch that she knew was the most comfortable and put her feet up on the coffee table that was in front of it. Solara slouched down into the couch and fell asleep before she even let her head fall against the back of the couch.

*~S~*

Solara woke up the next morning disoriented. It took her neatly a minute to remember what had happened the day before, and when she did she looked around to see if a pissed off Dionysus was watching her sleep. He wasn't, thank the gods, she'd had enough of the gods watching her sleep over the years.

She stumbled to the closest bathroom, then afterwards she got a glass of water from the kitchen and dug a granola bar out of her bag. She sat back down on the couch she had slept on and finished both. Just as she was about to get up to go find Dionysus, he and Chiron came into the room. Solara mentally shrugged and nodded at both in greeting, she was only going to get up if she absolutely had to, and hopefully that would be to find her knife on the hill, and then to go get her car from Montauk.

"Morning," she said.

Dionysus just grunted at her. Apparently even being a god can't make someone a morning person, or even help them accept morning. She could relate to that in so many ways.

"Are you here to stay?" Chiron asked instead.

Solara sighed. "As soon as I go get my car, yes, I'm here for awhile."

Dionysus nodded. "Be back by a reasonable time," was all he said before he left the room.

Solara blinked in surprise. She might have gotten used to him over the years, but he could still surprise her. Truth be told, she had gotten used to a more relaxed relationship with the gods ever since her first jump. Because she was from a different universe they didn't have to adhere to the 'no interference' rule. Which really wasn't 'no interference', and was more like, 'your kids have to pay for your sins, and you can never be allowed to help them'.

She had learned long ago that the reason the gods tended to not look in on their kids was because it was too hard to watch and not be apart of their lives. Not the best excuse in the world, and not even a good forgivable one, but Solara had learned the hard way that knowing the future, and knowing that the people around you that you care about are going to die, was worse than not getting involved. She never regretted getting involved though. As much as it hurt, she wouldn't trade having the memories that she had for not being in pain. The pain told her that it mattered, and she needed that, she needed the reassurance that it all mattered.

"I'll be back before dinner," she told Chiron before she grabbed her bag and hightailed it out of there.

She thankfully didn't have to search the grass for too long before she saw a glint of celestial bronze. She quickly picked up her knife and stuck it back in her boot. She hadn't realized how much she relied upon it to feel secure until she had it back on her. She was never handing it over to someone else ever again.

Solara pulled out her phone, a new one that could actually work in this universe, and called a cab. While she was waiting for it she took her hair down from the braid that she had put it in the night before. She grumbled to herself about the lack of a mirror to check and see if her hair was a complete mess on the top of her head. Mohawk braids were nice, especially when she knew that she was going to be fighting, but they always left her hair looking weird with wavy curls on one side and straight hair on the other.

"Fuck it," she muttered when her hair just seemed to get more and more tangled. She flipped her head over and gathered it all on the top of her head, once it was all gathered she stood up straight again and just twisted her hair into what was probably a frizzy mess of a bun.

When her cab finally arrived she happily got in the car and told the driver where she wanted to go. Neither of them spoke very much during the trip, and she guessed that the driver hated mornings just as much as she did. Once at Montauk she paid the driver and made her way to the cabin that she had been staying in.

Solara unlocked the door and went inside to gather up the few things that she had left there the night before. She paused when she picked up a bag of gummi bears. She grinned at them, she knew a fantastic way to get herself in Dionysus's good graces. She went over to the kitchen area of the cabin and got out a big bowl, she then dumped the entire contents of the bag of gummi bears into the bowl, and then emptied a bottle of Moscato into the bowl. She personally preferred vodka when she did this because it didn't really change the taste of the gummi bears too much, but she figured that Dionysus would prefer wine. Solara grinned at the bowl and carefully put it into the refrigerator.

Now she had to hang out there for a bit, but it really wasn't too much of a wait for the gummi bears to absorb all of the alcohol. She snatched up two apples and two apricots from the basket and grabbed a bottle of water and her guitar. She wanted to go outside and enjoy the weather while she waited on the gummi bears.

She wandered down to the water and sat down to eat the next part of her breakfast. Maybe four decently sized fruits were a bit much, but she hadn't really eaten a whole lot the day before, and working through her anger and then the fight with the Minotaur, she was hungry. Once done she piled up the cores and seeds then shuffled over to the water to wash her hands off. Moving back she picked up her guitar and began to play a few songs that were stuck in her head.

"Did you have to do this? I was thinking that you could be trusted. Did you have to ruin, what was shiny? Now its all rusted. Did you have to hit me when I'm weak. Baby I couldn't breath. And rub it in so deep. Salt in my wound like you're laughing right at me. Oh its so sad to think about the good times, you and I," she really wished that she could actually play this song when she wasn't by herself, or to an immortal. She honestly loved playing for other people, and she always had to be careful not to play songs that weren't due to come out for years. The questions were always uncomfortable to think up answers to, or avoid. "Band aids don't fix bullet holes. You say sorry just for show. If you live like that, you live with ghosts. Band aids don't fix bullet holes. You say sorry just for show. If you live like that, you live with ghosts. Cause if you love like that, blood runs cold!"

Solara missed the craze that 1989 had caused. Everyone had fallen in love with that album, and she wasn't really any different. Late to the party, but she had still gotten there. She sang 'Welcome to New York' next remembering how the song had amused her to no end. By the time it had come out she hadn't been living at camp anymore, and she had always meant to come back, but then she had made her first jump.

As bitter as she was about having to fight a war four times, Solara had to admit that all of her jumps had given her the opportunity to actually live a life. Multiple lives if she were going to be honest about it. She had gotten a few college degrees by now, and she had discovered the wonders of actually being able to use a cell phone and the internet.

Switching tracks Solara began to sing her favorite songs that usually soothed her for one reason or another. There were a couple that were sad in nature, but it was the softer melody that was calming to her.

"Walked along the beach that day, and watched the tide rush in and go. We jumped into a Ferris wheel, and watched the world below. You know that you are worth your weight in gold to me. And since that day I've never let you go. Waking up to you is all I know. Never break this spell I'm under. This will be the perfect summer. And since that day I've never let you..." Solara was actually pretty excited for Emma to come out with her EPs again. They had all been so much fun every time she had bought them, and hopefully she'd stick around for 'Sucks To Be You' this time.

She sighed, there were so many things that she wanted, and so many that she had to wait for. There were even more that she had to fight for with everything she had, and she was so tired of it all. And now she knew what sad song she was going to sing next.

"I don't want you around for me to bring you down. I don't want you to stay for me to push you away. I know you wanna but don't come home. I know you wanna but don't come home. So tell me why you stay at all. You'd be better off alone. You stick around to watch it fall. Even when I'm building up these walls. If you're not there when I get back tonight. I won't protest, I will not fight. Just don't come home. I know you wanna but don't come home." It was almost funny to sing that now. There had been a point in her and Luke's relationship where they were in love with each other, but they had found that living together had been next to impossible. She had actually been relieved when he had left camp that time, and then after a month she had followed him. That had been the one time she had sided with the Titans in the war.

At the time she hadn't regretted her choices, but when she had jumped again, she had regretted it all. She had even regretted falling in love with Luke. She had known that they never could have had a relationship, not a normal one anyway. There was also supporting the side that wanted to destroy a good portion of the world that had eaten her conscience alive.

"Ugh," she stood up to go back into her cabin, "I need therapy." She picked up her trash and went back inside to pack up the gummi bears and her guitar.

Once Solara was done gathering what was left for her to pack up she left the cabin and went to her car. She had already stayed later than she had intended, and she was used to losing herself in music, so she was glad that she had said that she'd be back before dinner. She knew that if she had tried to impose a stricter time limit upon herself she would never had made it.

"So I'm going home..." she sang softly as she started her car and began to drive back to camp.

*~S~*

Solara and Annabeth had been ordered to take care of Percy in shifts. Solara always took the night shift so that she had an excuse to sleep in the Big House for the time being. She knew that as soon as Percy woke up the both of them were going to be shoved into cabin eleven, and she was willing to admit that the last thing she wanted was to sleep on the floor of an overcrowded cabin that had been built for twenty being the max capacity.

Gods she understood the demigods's anger. If she hadn't known from the beginning that the Titans were more concerned with being on top and not caring about anything or anyone else, then she might have been temped more than once to side with them. She knew better though, and she knew that they would probably never win. Probably.

Percy finally woke up the next day, and Solara was slightly pissed that she'd have to move into cabin eleven with him. And Luke, she was going to have to face Luke again.

Solara was dozing on the porch of the Big House when Percy came around the corner. She barely managed to open her eyes when Annabeth muttered something under her breath when she caught sigh of Percy and Grover. Solara sighed and forced herself to sit up instead of leaning on the support beam for the roof. She wasn't entirely sure why Chiron and Dionysus wanted her there for the coming conversation, but she was there, and she really just wanted to go find a quiet place to take a nap.

She tuned into the conversation about the time that Annabeth told Percy that he drooled in his sleep. Solara snorted and rolled her eyes. "It wasn't that bad," she reassured him, "I mean, I've seen worse." Travis and Connor Stoll came to mind.

"You know, you never actually said what your name was," Percy said.

She blinked, she hadn't realized it, but in the craziness she actually hadn't. Grover had learned her name over the last two days, and for whatever reason Annabeth hadn't remembered her, so they had been reintroduced. "Solara," she said eventually trying not to get lost in thought.

"Solara?" and it took her an embarrassingly long time to figure out that he was asking for her last name.

"Well, aren't you a nosey little brat," she said. She didn't really want to admit that she had forgotten her last name. She had had to use so many fake ones over the years that her real one had been lost to her. Solara mused that she could ask Apollo, but in the end she wasn't sure that it really mattered anymore.

Dionysus snickered and she shot him a grin. Then she remembered the gummi bears that she had made for him back at the cabin. She dug them out of her bag and tossed them over to him.

"Trust me," she said with a grin.

Chiron was giving her a look, but she ignored him in favor of watching Dionysus try one of the gummi bears. When he looked over at her in surprise she just shrugged and grinned at him again. They both knew the wording of Dionysus's restrictions, and while he couldn't _drink_ wine, he could eat gummi bears that had been _soaking_ in wine.

Solara loved loopholes.

She also loved getting on the gods's good sides. Her life was always so much easier when she was on good terms with them.

"You still have to move into cabin eleven," he said.

Solara pouted at him, but she nodded knowing that he couldn't bend the rules for her. "Okay," she sighed, and slumped over a bit so that she was leaning against the support beam for the roof again.

Percy gave her a look like he wanted to ask what was wrong with cabin eleven, but Chiron wisely said something before he could ask. Solara wasn't going to lie to the kid, and while staying in cabin eleven could be nice at times, it usually left her annoyed after two weeks.

Content to watch Percy question everything Solara sat back and let her mind wander a bit. She grinned when Dionysus made a goblet of wine appear out of nowhere. She knew just as well as he did that he had only done it to get Percy to stop questioning the existence of the gods. She also ignored Chiron's sharp glance when Dionysus didn't seem as upset as usual when he switched the goblet of wine into a can of diet coke. She sure as fuck was not going to apologize for making Dionysus a bit more pleasant to be around.

"A god, you?" Percy asked.

Solara made a strangled noise in the back of her throat when Percy insisted on questioning the fact that Dionysus was a god. She knew better than to question the gods by now, and Percy was lucky that Dionysus was taking it easy on him due to his mother just dying.

"Would you like to test me, child?" he asked, probably after scaring the crap out of Percy.

"That would be idiotic," she said giving Percy a warning look.

"No. No sir," he said.

Thankfully there wasn't much left to their conversation, and even though she was now condemned to living in an overcrowded cabin, Solara was happy to get moving. She had been falling asleep just sitting there, and she knew that if it had gone on for much longer she would have either actually fallen asleep, or wandered off so that she didn't fall asleep at all.

"Jumper," Dionysus said before he went into the Big House, "Do try not to cause any problems while you are here."

Solara blinked at him. "I doubt that I will be the one causing them," she said, "Finishing them though," she smirked at him, "Well, I don't like unfinished business."

Dionysus just rolled his eyes and walked away.

"Why does he call you 'jumper'?" Percy asked her.

Solara shrugged. "You know kid, there are some things that you just really don't need to know." She then slid off of the porch railing that she had been sitting on and slung her bag over one shoulder. "I'll see you in cabin eleven," she said and then walked away.

Now all she could do was pray that Luke didn't recognize her. She doubted that it would happen, she had spent quite a bit of time with him after Thalia died, and Luke had always had a good memory.

She was so screwed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was fun to write. As for Solara having such a casual relationship with the gods... (Because I feel the need to explain why it's like that.) Well, my argument is that because she isn't from their universe, they don't have to keep their distance. So expect a lot of interaction with them. :)
> 
> Song the chapter title comes from is 'Priceless' by for King & Country.
> 
> Please leave a friendly comment on your way out! (And yeah, Luke next chapter, that should be buckets of fun.)


	4. using words that cut you down to size

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solara has conversations with Luke and Percy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer - See chapter one. I also don't own the song that Solara sings in this chapter.  
> Notes - I was depressed when I wrote this, and it shows.
> 
> RIP Christina Grimmie, thank you for being such an inspiration, you were amazingly talented, and your death was cruel and unfair.
> 
> RIP Orlando victims. Hate is a terrible thing when we let it consume us.
> 
> My thoughts and prayers are going to be with the victims's friends and families. If any of you are the praying type, please pray for them as well, and also pray for gun control in America, because tragedies like this are preventable if people would just let the laws be passed.
> 
> Song Solara sings:  
> Feel Invincible by Skillet

"Chiron's giving Percy a short tour," Solara said when Annabeth looked up at her approach.

Annabeth nodded. She opened the door to cabin eleven, and then stood back to let Solara deal with the piranhas.

She waved at them all tiredly. "My name is Solara," she said, "And I haven't been claimed by my father." 'Not that I even care for that to happen anymore' she added mentally.

A few of the kids groaned in exasperation. She really didn't blame them, there were more kids in the cabin now than there was five years ago. She actually commended Luke for his ability to keep them all in line for the most part.

"Come on guys, its what we're here for," Luke said stepping up towards her, but he was glaring at her. Solara was kind of glad that Annabeth had gone back to her book outside of the cabin.

Solara sighed and stepped further in and shut the door. "Which corner do I get?" she asked hoping that Luke would at least have the decency to bitch at her in private.

"That one," Luke said and pointed at the one that she knew had a draft and would make her freeze during the winter months.

"Thanks," she said, and them picked her way over there. She could hear some of the other kids murmuring about the fact that Luke had put her in the corner with the draft. Apparently there had been a bet going on that Luke was going to give Percy the spot in the drafty corner.

Well, no one here really knew that she had been here before, and that she and Luke knew each other. She had actually helped him as much as she could through his grief when she had been at camp five years ago. Then she had left him behind, after promising to stay in touch, and that promise she had only kept for six months before cutting ties with everyone. She had also been talking to Dionysus on occasion, not that Luke had known that, but she hadn't warned anyone that she was going to fall off the face of the earth either.

She had needed to cut herself off from everyone in order to give up on her original goals. She only regretted hurting Luke more than she had ever wanted to, and she couldn't even tell him how sorry she was for hurting him like that. Life was unfair like that, and gods knew that the Fates couldn't care less about who got hurt while they kept on weaving the fabric of reality together.

"So, was the blonde hair your real hair color?" Luke asked quietly as he sat down next to her, "Or is the brown real?"

"it's black," she said quietly and she shoved her bag further into the corner. No one could steal anything from it, but that didn't mean that she wasn't wary of most children of Hermes. Most tended to embrace the 'God of Thieves' title that he held more than Solara was really comfortable with.

"I almost didn't recognize you," he said, and wow did he sound pissed, "But then you spoke, and you still wear your hair the same way."

She had actually cycled through a couple of different hairstyles since she had left camp, but she usually wore it in a Mohawk Braid when she knew there was going to be fighting of any kind. Training was included in her list. "I like this hairstyle," she said after a moment, "It helps keep the hair out of my face when I'm fighting or training."

"You haven't aged," he said at last.

"My life is complicated," she said, "But you've grown up nicely... All tall and shit." She was deflecting and she knew it. Hell, going by his expression, he knew it too. She was also very careful not to mention the scar. She knew how much of a sore spot it was.

"You want to tell me why you disappeared and then came back looking like the past five years haven't touched you at all?" Luke asked, and now he was acting really cold towards her.

"Nope," she said, and she knew that she was going to pay for her flippancy later, but damn was this conversation not what she wanted to deal with right now. "Look," she sighed cutting him off before he could say something else, "As I said, my life is currently very complicated, and the last time I tried to explain it to someone, bad things happened. I had a feeling that I shouldn't tell them, anyone really, the truth, but then I did, and the other person ended up paying the price for my over-share..." Solara shook her head, "I don't want that to happen again, and five years ago I was dealing with a lot of shit, and while maybe I should have said something to someone, cutting myself off from everything seemed like the best plan at the time."

"Why do I get the feeling that you are telling the truth, but keeping a lot of it to yourself?"

She shrugged and glanced over at him. "Because I never lie about my life, but I never tell the whole truth either... Too many people died last time, and I never want to have to watch that again."

"I'm still pissed off at you," Luke said and then stood.

"I kind of figured that out already, thanks," she muttered to herself as he walked away from her.

Solara was actually kind of looking forward to Luke leaving the camp now. The last thing she had ever wanted to deal with was a cold war between her and Luke. She wondered how many people would notice how much he hated her, and then she hoped that no one really did. She sighed again, there were so many things that she had wanted to do, and say, when it came to Luke. She had made her decisions though, and so had he, and everyone else who mattered.

Dear gods, she was in for a hell of a time over the next ten-ish weeks.

She really wanted them to be over already.

*~S~*

Solara spent the next couple of weeks in a state of misery. She had actually taken to hiding in the Big House during the day in order to avoid Luke, and she was almost surprised that Dionysus didn't call her out on it. She kept making alcoholic gummi bears for him though, and she would readily admit to doing it so that he didn't tell her to actually go join cabin eleven in their activities. She had actually only been eating with them during mealtimes, and sleeping in the cabin at night.

She really wished that Apollo would claim her.

But the asshat never did. He claimed most of his kids, but only Solara and another girl by the name of Daphne had been left to stay in cabin eleven. Solara was certain that it was Daphne's name that had stopped Apollo from claiming her, but she had no idea as to why Apollo was ignoring her. He had already told her that he was her father, but now that she was at camp, she was invisible again.

She found herself on the beach again. Apart from the Big House, this was where she had been hanging out most of the time. (Or the archery range while it was empty, or the arena where swordplay was taught and practiced whenever Luke wasn't there.) a part of Solara hoped that Triton would show up, but she also doubted that he come anywhere close to camp while Percy was there.

She had a bottle of really good wine though, and she and Dionysus had an unspoken agreement that she could take some of his wine if she made gummi bears for him. Now that she thought about it, the gummi bears were probably not going to make up for all of the shit that she was bound to get dragged into sooner or later. As was previously stated, she had a bottle of really good wine, and pile of problems that drinking wasn't going to solve. Make her forget sure, but getting drunk wasn't going to fix anything. She wasn't even sure why she was drinking, she had just felt like it when she had woken up this morning.

Solara sighed and pulled the cork out of the bottle. She drank straight from the bottle like a heathen, but given that she had no intentions of sharing it didn't really matter. After a few generous swallows she set the bottle down in between her legs so that it didn't tip over. Wasting perfectly good wine was akin to blasphemy to her, and she sure as fuck wasn't going to waste _Dionysus's_ wine.

He'd never let her have more after that.

Solara had her earbuds in playing music as loud as she dared, and she also had a book that she hadn't really read much of before. Most of the books she owned she had read before, but this one had been a sequel to one she had already bought. She was actually really enjoying the book so far, and even though a few spots of it were triggering she still liked it. She tried not to think about the fact that she'd have to wait a few more years for the third one. (If she stuck around that long.)

Around lunchtime Solara debated getting up to eat with the rest of camp. She was only mildly drunk, but she also wasn't sure who she could trust at the moment. In the end she pulled out some peanut butter crackers and her last apple from the Fates's fruit stand and ate that as her lunch. Given how much alcohol she was consuming, it was probably a good thing that she also had a fairly large water bottle to help combat the dehydration.

After she was done eating she laid back in the sand. Her legs were stretched out so that her feet were getting hit by the waves, and just to be safe she had put her book somewhere above her head and had the bottle of wine held loosely in one hand by her side. Her hair was tossed over her face to shield her eyes from the sun. Solara was singing along softly to the song she was listening to when she felt someone walking up to her. They were coming from the direction of camp, so unless one of the gods were trying to confuse her, and that was doubtful, she knew that it was most likely a camper.

Inwardly cursing she sat back up. She supposed that she should be grateful for her full morning alone, and the fact that she had actually been able to lay there for over an hour, without someone coming along and seeing her. She pulled an earbud out and turned to see who was walking up to her. When she saw Percy she sighed in annoyance.

She liked Percy well enough, but he was the only one who had noticed how cold Luke was to her. He was living up to what the other universe hims were like, and was being a nosey brat about the whole thing. Usually she was able to avoid him, but she had made the mistake of seeking sanctuary at the beach while he was still at camp.

"I'm an idiot," she muttered to herself before he got in hearing range. She took a big drink from her dwindling wine and then turned to face him when he sat down next to her. "Can I help you?" she asked him trying to not sound as annoyed and tired as she felt. She probably failed, but Percy didn't act like he noticed.

"Aren't you too young to drink?" he asked instead gesturing to the wine bottle.

"I'm older than I look," she said, "Not that most of the kids here seventeen and older give a damn about age-laws and the like... You're a bit young to hear about that though." She eyed him curiously, "But you were looking for me for something, weren't you?"

"Why doe Luke hate you so much?" he asked, the words falling out quickly like he didn't trust her to stick around for the whole question.

Solara let her emotions shut down at the question. "I fail to see how that is any of your business." she looked away from him then and out over the water. Damn, she really missed the easy friendship that she used to share with Triton. Sure, she and Percy had known each other in the past, but they hadn't ever really been close. Luke, Triton, Travis, Connor, and Dionysus, had always been the ones that she had been close to.

"Seriously, you're around, but you're always by yourself," Percy pushed, "And anytime anyone even mentions you to Luke, he gets all weird."

"I made a mistake a long time ago," she said coldly still not looking at Percy, "Not that it's any of your business, as I said before." It really hadn't been that long ago, not to her at least.

"That doesn't answer–"

"Ask what you really came here to ask," she snapped turning to face him again. She knew that she could now see the tears in her eyes, but she didn't care. Luke was always going to be a sore spot for her, and she just hoped that she could at the very least help him realize that she and Hermes really did care about him.

"You..." Percy sighed and he was the one who turned away that time, "You were there that night when the Minotaur came after me. Why?"

"I promised your father I would be there," she said, "I mean, I was never going to fight your battles for you, but I wanted to help."

"My mother is gone."

"So is mine," she said, "Along with my little sister... and so many others that I can never forget the names of." Solara shook her head, this was probably one of the worst things to think about while mildly drunk. "Kid," she sighed, "Your mother has only ever tried to protect you. She was trying to lure the monster away from you so that you could get across the ward line, so that you could have a chance to _live_."

Percy looked like he wanted to argue.

"My mother did the same for me," she said before he could say anything. 'Except, she actually died,' she thought, 'And I never got the chance that you are going to get... A second try.'

"Why do you hide from everyone?" he asked after a minute of just staring at her, "The only people you talk to are Chiron and Mr. D."

"My life is complicated," Solara sighed and flopped backwards again too tired to stay sitting up. "They are the only ones who know the extent of the complicated mess I live in, and due to some frankly irritating rules, I can't tell anyone who isn't immortal about my life." She gave him an awkward shrug and lifted her head up just enough to take another drink of wine.

"One last question," Percy said.

"Shoot," she muttered flipping her hair back over her face to shield her eyes from the sun again.

"Why are you getting drunk in the middle of the day?"

"I didn't use to be a morning/day drinker," she sighed, "However, my stress has been piling up for days now, and I lost the ability to care about not turning into a morning/day drinker a few days ago... Now stop judging me, and I'll give a free bit of advice."

"Judging you? Who, me? I think you must be mistaken."

Solara smirked up at him, but didn't bother to try and open her eyes to look at him. "Believe in the decent, yet misunderstood, members of our family," she said, "They can and will do the right thing if you just believe in them... and give them back their stolen property. Oh, also, your mother is more than capable of saving herself."

"My mother..."

"Is capable of saving herself."

Neither said a word after that. Solara finished her wine just in time for dinner to start, and Percy had to help her to her feet. He looked shocked when he saw how steady she was once she got her balance, but she just grinned at him. She drank too much too often in the five years she had been away, but she was never going to tell anyone that.

"Come one kid," she said tugging him after her as she led the way to the dining pavilion, "I'm hungry, and they won't let us get our food without you going first."

"I hate that rule," Percy muttered making her grin.

*~S~*

Percy left for his quest the next day. Solara would have been happy for him if she didn't already know how much this was going to scar him for life. Well, maybe not for life, worse things happened to him later, but this quest sure did set the tone for his life. She was frowning the entire time that she and Chiron were saying goodbye to Percy, Annabeth, and Grover, and Percy looked like he wanted to ask her what was wrong. He didn't though, and she guessed that he remembered their conversation from yesterday.

Solara scowled when Luke showed up to give Percy the flying shoes. The _cursed_ flying shoes. The ones that were supposed to drag Percy down to Tartarus, and deliver him straight to Kronos.

Thankfully Luke seemed to be operating under the concept of 'I'll ignore you, if you don't talk to me'. It wasn't where she wanted to be, but she wasn't sure if she could crack his shell at all before he left camp at the end of the summer. She also hoped that with Percy gone he'd be more open to her trying to apologize again. Did she even apologize the first time? For some reason she didn't think that she had, and now all she could feel was a mountain of guilt, and a need to try and fix it.

She was screwed.

"They'll return," she said to Chiron once the van disappeared down the road, "Safe and sound, and full of mental health issues." She shrugged at his look of irritation. "I could be getting things mixed up again, but you can't tell me that a lot of demigods don't end up with PTSD at some point in their lives."

"I can't," Chiron admitted with a sigh.

"I do have PTSD," Solara offered, "In case you were wondering."

"So that's why you're so respectful to Lord Dionysus," he said.

"Among other reasons," she agreed, "Being able to get though a day without a panic attack is nice... Or having my depression triggered, those days I typically want to drink bleach." She turned slowly and wandered her way down the hill. "As I said though," she called back to him, "They'll return safe and sound."

Solara drifted through the camp like a ghost. She didn't run into very many people, and the only ones she ran into were Castor and Pollux. Their eyes widened when they came within ten feet of her, and she knew that they could feel her falling apart. Gods she wished she knew what was causing her to have an episode this bad. They hadn't been this bad in awhile, and she knew that she needed to be by herself until she could ground herself in reality again.

It took hours. In the end she missed dinner and the campfire sing-along. Still not completely okay, but unwilling to push her luck, she snuck into cabin eleven to sleep. Once there she carefully picked her way over to her spot in the corner, and she had every intention of collapsing onto her sleeping bag and going to straight to sleep.

A glare and a hand over her mouth kept her from yelping in surprise when she discovered another person in her spot. She narrowed her eyes at Luke. He had been content for her to avoid her for two weeks now, and he chose now to corner her. She pulled out of his grasp and glared down at him.

"Outside," she hissed at him and turned around and crept back over to the door. "What do you want?" she asked once they both were outside and the door was shut behind them. She had thought that he'd want to have another conversation at some point, but hadn't thought that he'd want it this soon.

"What do you think avoiding me is going accomplish?" he asked.

Solara blinked in confusion. "Okay," she sighed, "I have just had a frankly mentally and emotionally exhausting day, and I can't even begin to understand that question."

"Why are you avoiding me?" he asked instead.

"I thought that you were pissed and didn't want to deal with me," she answered honestly. "I mean," she sighed again, and wow, her grasp on reality was slipping again. "I hurt you," she said, "I fucked up royally, and I don't expect you to just welcome me back with open arms... I made a mistake, and I realize that. If I were really avoiding you, you would never see me around without straight up trying to find me."

Luke looked stunned for a moment. "You actually feel bad for something you did," he muttered in awe.

Solara shrugged at him. "A lot of people do in fact feel bad about the things they do that hurt others, but the ones that are hurt don't always realize it... I'll admit that it's not always their fault, because sometimes the person who did the hurting never shows how much they regret it, or they don't regret it enough to do anything about it." She shook her head to clear her thoughts, "But that's not the point... the point is..." Solara blinked at him, she had lost what she was going to say, and she was still trying to remember what was real and what wasn't. "Fuck," she muttered.

Luke frowned at her. "Are you okay?" he asked, and he actually sounded mildly concerned.

"I'm beginning to think that I have more than depression and PTSD," she said her gaze drifting away from him. "I'm sorry," she said suddenly her gaze snapping back to his, "For what I did, it was a shitty thing to do, and I did it anyway. At the end of the day, I'm really not much better than a coward. I've wanted to be brave. I wanted to fight, but I always lost, and I got tired of losing." Solara gave Luke a sad look, "Walking away solved nothing, and I think I ended up hurting more people than I ever intended to... including myself."

She turned and walked back into the cabin after that. She couldn't handle the conversation anymore, and she wasn't even sure if anything she had said made sense. She wondered who was going to end up dragging her to Dionysus tomorrow. Would it be Castor and Pollux, or would it be Luke?

She couldn't wait to find out.

*~S~*

All three of her suspects dragged her to Dionysus the next day. Luke did it because she had scared the pee out of him, and the twins because she was beginning to affect them. She didn't blame them one bit for it either. She was scaring herself, and any of her usual methods to help herself weren't working.

Dionysus, for his part, sighed when he caught sight of the four of them. The boys probably looking freaked, and she was zoning out only vaguely taking note of her surroundings. Everyone around her had been labeled 'non-threatening', and so she had proceeded to retreat into her head. It had come to a point where there was too much stimuli for her to comprehend, and all she wanted to do was hide in a dark room with something to read.

She wanted to escape her life for a few hours. Was that too much to ask for?

Apparently.

Dionysus took pity on her though. She knew that the alcoholic gummi bears would pay off eventually. For the next week she had a free pass out of activities and lessons of any kind. She still had to help cabin eleven with their chores, but she could do the solitary ones by herself. She was also the only one allowed to go to the beach for the week as well. The other campers wondered why they weren't allowed to go, but Castor, Pollux, and Luke squashed any questions before they could be aimed at her.

Dionysus also put her on medication. She figured that was why she was being given a week to herself. The kind of drugs he was putting her on took time to adjust to. He was also keeping a close eye on her, and demanded that Castor, Pollux, and Luke would watch her as well. She really didn't blame him for that. She had been on this type of medication before, and she had had negative reactions and bad experiences. She was actually kind of glad that she wasn't being given a chance to hide anything, and then when her mood would switch unexpectedly she was pissed at them all.

Gods help her, she really just wanted to deal with her shit and try and get back to her bit of normalcy that she had. Maybe she hadn't been the picture of mental health, but she had been able to deal with it better.

It was her last day to herself, and she was almost starting to feel a little better. She hadn't actually had a bad reaction to the meds this time, and was feeling kind of great about it. She was listening to her 'Victory' playlist as loud as she could handle the volume, and was singing along without worrying about someone hearing.

"Hey, hey, hey, everyday when I wake. They say that I'm gone; they say that they've won. The bell has been rung, it's over and done. Hey, hey, hey, when I need to be saved. They're counting me out, but this is my round. You in my corner; look at me now." Solara loved this song. She had long stopped caring that Christian music was vastly different that what she had learned about the world. (She also knew that more than just the Greek gods existed.) The song had pretty much become her fight song, and she had begun to wonder a bit about the Christian God. "Shot like a rocket up into the sky. Nothing could stop me tonight. You make me feel invincible. Earthquake, powerful, just like a tidal wave, you make me brave. You're my titanium, fight song, raising up. Like the roar of victory in a stadium. Who can touch me cause I'm, I'm made of fire. Who can stop me tonight, I'm hard wired. You make me feel, invincible."

Solara felt someone sit down next to her. When she smelt the sea, she smiled.

'Finally,' she thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is slightly choppy in my opinion. However, because the story is told pretty much solely from Solara's point of view, it works.
> 
> ALSO! Depression is such a messy thing. Medicine doesn't cure you. You'll see that next chapter. It's also a tad more complicated than I made it out to be, but I wanted to simplify it a bit since it's been so long since I'd been on it myself. Let's just chalk it up to Dionysus being a god, and leave it at that. Solara still has a metric fuck-ton of issues to work through, and while it hadn't been my original intent, it now makes the story make more sense. (We all know the demigods have issues, and the fact that Rick never properly addresses them kind of irritates me.)
> 
> tl;dr Depression blows, and medicine doesn't cure a damn thing, it just helps you fix yourself.
> 
> The chapter title is taken from the song 'Unbreakable Heart' by Three Days Grace.
> 
> Please leave a friendly something on your way out! :) (Yes, writers are needy. Feedback helps us know that people are reading our stories. Don't believe me? Read Stephen King's 'On Writing'.)


	5. come morning light, you and I'll be safe and sound...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Triton comes for a visit, and there is a party at the beach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs Solara sings:  
> The Crow and The Butterfly by Shinedown  
> Second Chance by Shinedown

"Why do you have Queen Coral?"

The question was fired at her as soon as she had taken out her earbuds. Solara just smiled at the question. She had wondered what he was going to say to her first. Last time it had been 'Why are you always playing music while barely wearing any clothes?'. She had been in a sports bra most of the time, so she guessed she could forgive him for that part of the question.

"You know that I come from another universe, yes?" she asked instead.

"Yes," he said giving her a look, "That was why I wanted to know who gave you the Queen Coral."

"You did," she said, and sat back to watch his reaction. It was about frigging time that Triton showed up, she was beginning to fear that she wouldn't see him until the solstice.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because you cared, and I was a hot mess at the time?" she said, but it sounded more like a question even to her.

"So we were... something."

Solara shrugged at him. "Something," she agreed, "But you always have a choice... you don't have to choose me this time."

Triton frowned, "What were we?" he asked.

She sighed, she wasn't entirely sure how she should answer that, and had hoped that he wouldn't ask. "That's a complicated question," she muttered turning away from him. "We were... a hot fucking mess." She shook away the memories of how their relationship had started, "You were pissed off at the entire bloody universe, and so was I, but I also had a serious case of self-loathing and suicidal tendencies."

"That doesn't really give me an answers," Triton said.

"It does though," she said softly, "Because we both were so fucking broken over stupid shit, and we knew that we just needed someone who understood. Who was there to listen to us, and to not judge us for our weakness when we couldn't hold it off anymore. We ignored the fuck out of social norms, and decided that the world could go fuck itself while we fixed ourselves..." she turned back to him, "We weren't in a romantic relationship, we both knew that that was probably the worst thing we could have done to each other. So we chose something else."

"You aren't going to use plain words, are you?"

"Can't," she said, "What I've told you, is all I can tell you without risking unnecessary lives." She wasn't actually sure about that, but she was unwilling to risk it.

Triton nodded and shrugged. "Fair," he decided.

Solara smiled, this was why she loved him. It was also why a romantic or sexual relationship would ruin them. They were too much alike to ever be able to co-exist like that.

'Gods, I missed this,' she thought.

They talked for awhile after that. They talked about things that they could talk about with it being their first meeting. Topics about nothing and everything were visited, but they didn't delve very deep. There would be time for it all later, and she knew that he still wasn't ready to talk about Percy. Not that she blamed him, she wasn't ready to talk about the jumping issue, and really wasn't ready to touch the Luke thing.

She wouldn't have been able to tell him yet anyway.

She hated knowing future events.

*~S~*

Two days left. The entire camp was on edge, and fights were breaking out hourly. Solara swore she was going to punch Luke in the face before he left camp. She had no desire to track him down just to deck him, so she hoped that she could catch him before he left.

Seriously, the ass-hat had decided to out what the quest was about and why the gods were fighting. If she hadn't known that he was already working for Kronos, she'd have known after that stunt. The dick.

"I'm going to kill him," she grumbled to herself as she switched the laundry around for the girls in cabin eleven. She was glad that each cabin did their own laundry, she'd straight up murder someone if she had to do more than that.

"Who are you going to kill?" a voice behind her asked.

Solara spun around quickly in surprise. She sighed in relief when she saw that it was Connor and Travis. "No one," she muttered, "I'm going to assume you both pissed off Luke in some form or another?"

They grinned, "It was a good prank," they chorused.

"Right," she said eyeing them warily, "Forgive me if I don't believe you, and have no desire to know more than that." She edged away from them, but froze and smirked at them a second later. "On the other hand," she said, "I'm going to assume it was a prank on Luke, so, by all means, do tell." She leaned forward dramatically and propped herself on the nearest washing machine.

"It wasn't Luke," Connor said giving her a weird look.

"Damn," she sighed and straightened up, "Never mind then."

"What did he do to piss you off?" Travis asked.

Solara shrugged, "I'm not really that pissed," she said, "Annoyed, and likely to punch a certain person for being a great big bag of dicks, but not really all that mad."

"That sounds like anger," Connor said.

"It does, doesn't it?" she grinned at them as they finally got their first load into a washing machine, "But I usually don't have the energy for anger. So I tend to not actually be as pissed as what I would be if I had the energy to show my anger. People live longer that way too," she muttered the last bit and then turned away from the Stolls.

"Wow," she heard Connor mutter, then there was a muffled yelp and she assumed that Travis had elbowed him in the side.

"Someone had to inherit his temper," Solara said referring to her father, and tossing a wink over her shoulder.

The brothers snickered. "Point," Travis said, "Can I ask a very personal and invasive question?"

Solara smirked gleefully and turned back towards them. "I don't know," she said, and they both looked mildly afraid of what she was going to say next, "Can you?"

They groaned. Solara cackled.

"In all seriousness," she said after calming down a bit, "Sure, you may ask said question, but I may not answer, and I'll try not to get too angry and punch you if you cross a line you didn't know existed."

"Fair enough," Travis nodded his understanding, "Why do you act like an immortal?"

Solara blinked at him. "I have seriously underestimated you," she muttered in awe, "I mean, out of everyone at camp I expected the question to come from Silena, Percy, or even Clarisse, but not you two." She backed up slowly until she was leaning against one of the dryers. Gazing at them steadily she watched them as they waited for her to think of an answer.

"I can't really tell you much," she finally said, "Not because I don't want to, but because a lot of people got hurt the last time I told someone the truth." She shrugged helplessly at them. "And it isn't because I don't trust you... Funnily enough, I know that I can, but knowledge of future events is a bit of a tricky thing. Knowing that what you do or say might change the future, and there are some that would want to change it."

"Couldn't it be changed for the better though?" Connor asked.

"Theoretically," Solara said, "But the Fates get pissy if you mess with their design. Mortals can do it, but that's incredibly rare... Even demigods are subject to adhering to the will of the Fates."

"So, knowledge of future events makes you act like an immortal?" Travis asked bringing them back to his question.

"Ah, no," Solara said, "My quasi-immortality makes me act like an immortal." She shrugged at them again, "My body stopped aging soon after my seventeenth birthday, and it's been like that for about fifty years now." She winced, "But I need you both to swear on the River Styx to keep that to yourselves until I tell you otherwise, or I die, whichever comes first."

The brothers traded looks and proceeded to have an conversation silently. "Sure," they said turning back to her. "I, Travis/Connor Stoll, swear on the Styx never to reveal that Solara has quasi-immortality to anyone until she says we can, or she dies." They both grinned at her when they all heard thunder rumbling in the distance.

"That was easy," she said blinking at them, ""Why was that so easy?"

"Because we wanted to know why you told us," Travis said seriously.

"We also realized how much carrying that around must suck, and well," Connor shrugged at her, "It has to make your life pretty shit. I mean, you aren't aging for a reason, a reason I assume you know, and you don't have to say," he said quickly at her cornered look, "But we aren't stupid enough to think that you're making up your mental illness, and I doubt anyone could fool Mr. D anyway, and we figure that you're having the problems you're having for a reason."

"Demigods don't live very long," Travis added, "Not unless you are a Hunter." They both scowled at the mention of the Hunters of Artemis making Solara giggle. "But," Travis continued, "Your quasi-immortality is different, and I very much doubt that you really have much in the way of a support system."

"Not really," she admitted, "My life keeps changing so much, and I keep having to start over ever few years."

"Do the gods just... forget about you?" Connor asked.

Solara laughed and turned to get another load of laundry switched over to a dryer. "I wish it were that simple, but I really can't tell you more that that." She smiled sadly at them, "But, the reason I told you as much as I did? It's because I do trust you... yes I made you swear that oath, but that is just because I've grown paranoid over the decades."

The Stolls traded looks again then shrugged when they turned back to her. "Fair enough," they said with matching grins.

Solara just laughed again. 'I missed this too,' she thought, 'Connor and Travis will never need a quest, they do their best work right here at camp.'

"Already heroes," she whispered to herself.

*~S~*

Solara was in the Big House when Annabeth and Grover arrived back at camp. She and Dionysus hovered in the background pretending not to listen to them tell Chiron everything that happened on their quest. Percy had gone up to Olympus alone, but Solara suspected that he was already back at his mother's. She grinned a feral little grin at the thought of Sally using Medusa's head to get rid of Gabe.

She frowned at the one memory she had of the man. It had been before her last jump, but she doubted that he had really changed all that much in this universe. The man had been verbally abusive towards everyone when she met him, and she knew from a past conversation that he had started to get physically abusive towards Sally and Percy shortly before he died. Maybe it was bad to be happy that he was going to die, but Solara hardly cared.

Maybe Connor and Travis had a point... She did act like immortals did half of the time. She knew that it was more than just inheriting Apollo's temper, but she also knew that her being frozen at a depressed and temperamental age hadn't really helped when it came to maturing. She had a theory that the gods usually took on the age that their mentality most reflected, especially when it came to mortal society, and Apollo was usually in his late teens/early twenties... there was no maturity to be found in that side of her genes. Gods, she hadn't really realized it until they had said something to her, but the Stolls were right.

'I have the temper of a god,' she thought trying not to go into shock, 'Is this new, or has it always been this way?'

"I thought that you wouldn't be surprised jumper," Dionysus said quietly.

"I'm not," she muttered, "Not about this," she gestured to Chiron, Annabeth, and Grover. "No, I... I just realized something, and I'm not sure if it's always been that way, or if it's new thing that cropped up recently." She scoffed suddenly, "It probably isn't really all that new."

He looked at her without blinking, and she knew that he was checking in on her mental state. "Whatever it is, it hasn't made you worse," he muttered, "I suppose the brats should be thankful for that at least."

"I didn't hurt anyone before!" she protested.

"You could have."

Solara sighed. He wasn't entirely wrong with that statement, but it was still jarring to hear it out loud. She could have hurt someone, and she almost had in the past, but she usually only hurt herself. "I know," she said, "I fucking owe the four of you."

"Gummi bears," he said quietly making sure that the other three were still ignoring them.

"I know," she grinned, "You're the easy one... Your sons, and Luke? Forget that, I have no idea."

He laughed. "You'll figure something out jumper... that I don't doubt you are capable of."

Solara smiled. It was nice to hear that someone believed in you. Even if it was only about a little thing, but it meant a lot, and she hoped that she could stick around after the war this time to see if things had gotten better afterward.

An idea came to her then. She knew a way to show Luke that she was thankful for his help. It might not be what some would expect, but she knew that he would accept it. Appreciate it? Be happy about it? Not really, but he would accept it, and she hoped that he'd think on it from time to time during the war.

"Got an idea," she said hoping off of the kitchen counter where she'd been sitting next to Dionysus. "Seeyoulaterbye!"

She could hear him snickering behind her as she ran passed the other three and then out of the door. So he wouldn't be pissed about her rushed exit, good, she didn't need to add appeasing him onto her list. Running down towards the cabins she hoped that she could catch Luke before he went to wherever he disappeared to during their free hour. She sped up a bit when she caught sight of him.

Running up to him she grabbed his hand and began to drag him towards the beach. "Come on,come on," she said quickly, "I want to talk to you... in private." she added the last bit when he looked like he was going to protest.

He followed, and maybe it was wrong to take advantage of the fact that he couldn't say 'no' without someone questioning it, but she really needed to do this now before she chickened out. Besides, getting him to the beach would be the easy part, the hard part would be getting him to listen.

Once they made it to the beach she dropped his hand knowing that he really wouldn't want to her to keep holding on. She took a deep breath and turned to face him.

"I wanted to thank you for getting me help," she said bluntly," So, thank you, I really do appreciate it. There's another thing though," she said when he was about to turn away. "I'm sorry," she said, "I'm sorry for all of the pain that I caused when I just dropped off of the face of the earth. It was stupid and selfish, and there is no excuse for being a self-centered bitch."

"You already said all of that," he said giving her a confused look.

"I was having a mental breakdown at the point, and hours away from slitting my wrists open, it doesn't count." She snorted then began to laugh, "I was hysterical," she said a second later after she regained control over herself, "I was depressed as fuck, and seriously, that apology was a shitty apology."

Luke nodded. "alright," he said and turned to walk away, but then turned back. "Why?"

"Eh?"

"Why did you do what you did?"

"Because I'm a self-centered bitch, and I can admit to it."

"Besides that though."

Solara sighed. "I... I really don't have a good reason.," she said quietly, "I just... fuck, I was selfish, and despite my whole speech about not shutting people out while your grieving, remember that?" She waited for him to nod, "Yeah, I'm a hypocrite, because that is what I do. Every single time something bad happens and I lose someone I love, I shut the world out, and I ignore the people who would have gladly helped me.

"This time was worse though," she said looking up at him seriously, "I was only thinking about my own pain, an I ignored yours. I deserve your anger, and I'm sorry that I made whatever relationship we had crumble in the first place." She nodded and shrugged awkwardly before walking away. She guessed that she had given him a bit to think about, because he didn't try to stop her or call out to her.

She did her best.

*~S~*

Percy cornered her a week after he returned.

Solara had been down on the beach again, but she hadn't been alone this time. Dionysus had told her a way to get into his sons's good graces, so here they were with all of the older campers throwing a party. (Older campers being seventeen and older. Castor and Pollux were the youngest of them being only fifteen, but since Solara was the one who was throwing the party and she had invited them, none of the older campers told them to leave.

She really hoped that none of them were dumb enough to ever tell a child of Dionysus to leave a party.

"I'm assuming that this is what you mean by only the older campers really drink," Percy said sneaking up on her.

She jumped and then laughed loudly. She hadn't been drinking any alcohol this time, but she had definitely gotten into the mood that everyone else was in. "Hey kid!" she said and slung an arm around his shoulders, "Let's take a walk away from the bad influences."

Thankfully Percy didn't argue.

"What's the usual age limit?" Percy asked when they were far enough away from the small group.

"Seventeen and over," Solara answered, "'Cept for any child of Dionysus... It would be incredibly stupid not to invite them."

"Wow."

"Why?" Solara asked grinning down at him, "Planning to join in later if you make it that far?"

"I don't like alcohol," Percy said scoffing a bit.

"Kid, not everyone over there is drinking. I'm not drinking, but that's because I got put on anti-depressants while you were gone, and I tell you now, never mix the two." She looked at him seriously, "Really, bad things will surely happen... Actually, just never mix meds and alcohol ever. It's a bad combination."

"Noted," Percy said.

"Now," she said and took a few steps back so that there was some distance between them again. "What do you want?"

"Enjoying the party?" Percy asked with a smirk.

"Brat," she said fondly, "Yes, I was, now what do you want?"

"How did you know that the helm of darkness had been stolen?" Percy asked looking up at her accusingly.

"Drop the glare," she ordered, "I was in Georgia when the theft took place."

"Why don't I believe you?" he asked snidely.

"Because you're a judgmental brat?"

Percy huffed and glared at her.

Solara rolled her eyes. "Grow up kid," she snapped, "I'm not stupid enough to steal a god's symbol of power, much less two! The reason I know that it had been stolen is because I know a lot of things that no one else knows, and I there are things I wish that I didn't know. The truth might set you free, but no one will ever tell you the burden that having and knowing that truth will cost."

"So you didn't steal anything?" Percy asked still looking suspicious.

"Are you even _listening_ to me?"

Percy shrugged. "The sea does not like to be restrained."

Solara blinked at him before bursting into laughter. "Oh gods," she gasped still laughing, "You and your brother... no wonder he can't stand the thought of you! Thank the gods you haven't met yet, the world might implode." She turned and walked away from him still laughing.

"Can you tell me anything?" Percy asked.

"Yeah, there is an age limit for this party," she tossed over her shoulder and began to walk away. "I told you before you left kid, there isn't much about my life that isn't complicated, and I can only talk to certain types of people." She didn't bother to look back at him, she knew that her flippant attitude would annoy the crap out of him, but she also knew that he'd figure everything out sooner or later.

She knew it was later.

Solara went back to the party. She didn't see Percy again for the rest of the night, and she was kind of happy about it. She wanted to forget about wars and prophecies for one night and to just enjoy living for a few hours.

Her good mood kind of surprised her. She hadn't had much to be happy about in years, and even though there really wasn't much to celebrate for her. She was definitely getting into the mood with the other campers celebrating no civil war among the gods. Of course, she knew the real reason why civil war had almost broken out, but she couldn't tell the others. She could celebrate the small victory by herself though.

'Well, he lost this battle,' she thought as she laughed at a joke an Apollo camper just told. 'And he'll lose the war... it's just the lives lost along the way that's depressing to think about.'

Solara wandered over to the edge of the group. She was still enjoying herself, but it was way past curfew, and even though the harpies weren't enforcing curfew yet, she was still wary of how late they were staying out. Not that she'd dream of ending the party yet. Hell, she knew that half of the group was planning on staying up until the sun rose again. It actually sounded pretty fun though, and as tired and paranoid as she was, she was planning on sticking around until the end.

"Your words still serenade me, your lullabies won't let me sleep, I've never heard such a haunting , it's killing know I can barely breathe." Solara hadn't even realized that she had begun singing until everyone else went silent. "Sorry," she muttered with a blush, and since her hair was down from it's braid for once she let it fall forward to hide her face.

"No!" someone exclaimed, "Sing some more."

The others in the group said similar things. Luke even encouraged her to sing, and she looked at him curiously wondering why he wanted her to sing. They really weren't getting along all that much, but they had moved from cold war to pretty civil, even when it was just them. He hadn't quite forgiven her, but she didn't think that it was that far away. (She had actually shown that she was regretful for what she did after all.)

Apparently, even when he wasn't even her friend, Luke still liked to hear her sing.

Solara shrugged then began to sing another song.

"My eyes are open wide, and by the way, I made it through the day. I watched the world outside. By the way, I'm leaving out today. I just saw Halley's comet, she waved, said, 'Why you always running in place?' Even the man in the moon disappeared, somewhere in the stratosphere." She pulled an Aphrodite boy by the name of Charlus into a dance. She kind of hoped that someone else would start singing as well, she knew that this song was out by now, and she never liked being the only one to sing in a situation like this. As soon as she started singing the chorus two Apollo kids and the one daughter of Hecate that was there joined in with her.

Laughing a bit she let Charlus go and she an the other three who were singing danced together. The others soon got into the song and some sang the chorus with them, and the others danced around just enjoying the free music. Towards the end the others trailed off their singing so that Solara was singing by herself again.

"Tell my mother, tell my father, I've done the best I can. To make them realize, this is my life. I hope they understand. I'm not angry, I'm just saying..." she finished the last couple lines of the song slightly out of breath. She grinned and blushed when everyone cheered. "Your turn!" she shouted and pointed randomly at one of the ones who sang with her.

The girl laughed. She sang an older song that Solara only barely remembered. Happy to fade into the background again she wandered back to the edges of the group again. She was humming along with the songs that the others were singing for the most part, but it was about six songs later during one she didn't really know that Luke nudged her and gestured her to follow him. Shrugging she followed him knowing he wouldn't do anything with so many people around.

"This was nice," Luke commented once they were far enough away that no one would overhear them.

"Figured we all could use the opportunity to unwind," she lied. She probably didn't have to lie about why she had suggested throwing a party, but she didn't really want to go down that path.

He laughed. "You have no idea," he said, and he sounded tired. She knew that Kronos was pissed that his little plot hadn't worked, and he was taking it out on Luke.

'I do, Luke,' she thought, 'I really, really do.'

"Well, now that the fights have stopped, I might actually show up for scheduled activities," she joked, "I mean, I'm here to stay, so I might as well bloody act like I live here now." She smiled up at him and hoped that he didn't make a shady offer about leaving. She would never do that again, and she'd either have to play dumb, or tell him plainly that she had no desire to serve the psycho he was throwing his lot in with.

"I had noticed that you were actually participating a bit more," he joked back with a smile. "Anyway," he said, and this time he sounded serious, "I... did you know that you talk in your sleep?"

"Damn, shit, fuck," she said closing her eyes and stopped walking. "Fuck," she said again, "What did you hear?"

"Not much," Luke said making her melt with relief, "Just you begging for someone not to die, and for someone to stop something."

"Great," she muttered and shook her head, "Just fucking great." She sighed and looked over at him again, "I –"

"You weren't lying when you said that you had a lot to deal with." Luke interrupt her not even looking in her direction. "I'm still... I'm still pissed at you," he said and this time he did look over at her, "But, given what I heard, I guess I can somewhat understand why you decided to cut off contact with me. As you said, people shut others out when they're in pain."

"It's still a shitty reason, and still a shitty thing to do."

"I forgive you," he shrugged at her shocked look, "I'm not okay with what you did, and I doubt that I'll ever be okay with it... but you sounded..."

"Broken," she supplied, "I'll bet you anything I sounded so fucking broken that I'd make a marble statue cry."

"You would win that bet."

"I'm still sorry," she said, "Thank you for understand as much as you can without context, and trust me, I'll always remember this."

"That's the other reason," he said, "Because you actually feel guilty about it."

"Too many people say words they don't actually mean," she agreed. "I'm sorry, and 'I love you' seem to be the favorites."

"And some who need to say them the most, never seem to get the words out."

Solara nodded, he really wasn't wrong about that.

"Enough cynicism," she said and began to walk back in the direction of the party. "We came out for a reason. Now let's meet the sun."

They raced each other back to the party. Luke lost and happily bitched about her cheating to the others. She denied the cheating saying that of course when a person starts to run that means that it's turned into a race, and they shouldn't always have to say it. The others just laughed them off, and they traded tentative smiles.

Solara wished that things would continue this way. She wished that she could freeze this moment so that all of the pain ad hurt in the future never had to happen. She didn't have that power though, and she tried to remember every single face as she saw them in the firelight. This was what she was going to fight for, and she wanted to remember every detail of this night.

It really ended too soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seem to favor depressing endings/cliffhangers. Sorry not sorry.
> 
> The chapter title is from the song 'Safe and Sound' by Taylor Swift.
> 
> Please leave a friendly comment on your way out! :)


	6. and I feel like I'm breaking inside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer - See chapter one. I also don't own the songs that Solara sings in this chapter.  
> Notes - Songs Solara sings:  
> Invincible by Crossfade  
> Run to You by Lacey Sturm (Again only the last line, but she still sang it.)

The rest of June faded and July passed without her really taking note of it. The fireworks display was beautiful as usual, but she had seen it so many times that she no longer found any awe in it. August got her tense and ready to scream at a moment's notice. She had two and a half weeks left to spend with Luke. She wondered if he knew that she knew that he was going to leave, she wasn't exactly being very subtle in her behavior.

"How did you know about my mother?" Percy asked her a week before camp officially ended.

Solara sighed at the sound of his voice. She had been down at the beach again trying to calm herself down by playing a violin that she had borrowed from Daphne. She had usually found playing the instrument calming in the past, but she figured that was because she loved the sound of it. Sadly it wasn't working today, not that Percy popping up and asking the mother of all complicated questions helped her either.

"Because I'm immortal and I know the future," she deadpanned and didn't look over in his direction. She tried to go back to playing, but it was weird with Percy standing two feet away watching her.

"You're not immortal," Percy said, and wow, now he was glaring at her like she had said something unbelievably rude.

Solara snorted. "I'd be careful what you say," she warned, "You usually can't tell if a demigod is immortal or not... Gods, yes, you'll always be able to sense them, but immortal demigods usually aren't much different than your average person."

"I still don't believe you," he said.

"Good," she muttered and crouched down to put the violin back in it's case. "I'm a liar, and you can only trust me when I'm talking to someone I'm too afraid to lie to."

"Those people are who now?"

Solara threw him a flat, unimpressed look. "I knew about your mother because _I knew about your mother_ ," she said, "Now stop asking me questions you know that I can't answer." She closed the violin case and stood back up with it. "And don't ask the 'can't or won't' question, because it's 'can't'. Actually, if I ever say something cryptic again, and then you later realize what I meant, chances are I can't answer you when you want to question me about it."

Percy scowled at her. "Why are you always so rude?" he asked.

"Why are you always asking questions that are none of your business?" she shot back.

"One day, you'll actually answer me."

"Sure," she scoffed, "And I'll also probably be dying." Solara shook her head at him and then walked away. She cared for Percy, she really did, but he loved to push her buttons, and she was past the point of willing to put up with it for the week. She probably wouldn't be willing to put up with it until after Luke left.

That and it was just a bad day. She had woken up on the verge of wanting to either kill someone or kill herself, and she had even noticed Castor and Pollux eyeing her warily. She didn't blame them, they might only be able to feel how she was doing mentally, but she knew that her grip on reality was slipping. Taking a nap would be better, it was like a manual reboot for her brain, but cabin eleven was always too loud and too busy for her to actually fall asleep long enough for that to work.

Irritated and seconds away from having another breakdown she made her way quickly to the Big House. Chiron and Dionysus would let her hide on the second floor for as long as she felt like it, and she might even be able to squeeze in a nap before dinner. She would definitely have to leave before dinner though, they might look the other way when it came to a few things, but she still had to follow most of the rules.

She sighed in relief once she was safely in a room by herself on the second floor. She curled up in a chair that was placed by the window. Solara closed her eyes at the feeling of the sun warming her up from the strong breeze outside. She drifted off to sleep before she had even realized exactly how tired she was.

*~S~*

Solara looked around in irritation. She recognized where she was, so she at least didn't have to deal with the whole 'I have no idea where I am in my dream' problem that quite a few demigods had to deal with. No, what was irritating her was that she was in Tartarus. Actually in it too and not just standing at the edge of a pit. Gods she hated these dreams, he never seemed to realize that there was nothing he could do or say to get her to joining his side.

Not even the promise of stopping her jumps. The cost just wasn't worth it to her.

"What do you want ass-hat?" she asked rudely, knowing he was just hiding his presence from her, and also knowing that he could hear her. He might fuck with her by making her see shit that was only going to make her mental state worse, but he would also get pissed and send her away if she was a brat too. There was no winning. If only because not pissing him off meant listening to his sleazy used car salesman pitch. The longer you listened, the more you question why you were saying 'no' in the beginning.

The shadow-y, and semi-transparent, form of Kronos smiled at her. Or it felt like he smiled at her. "Do you think I haven't learned your tricks by now jumper?" he asked his voice sending shivers up her spine, and she tried not to cry and run in fear.

She scowled at him. She liked it better when Dionysus called her jumper. In fact this was the first time Kronos had ever called her that, and if she ever found out that either Luke or Percy told Kronos what Dionysus called her, she was going to hurt them. "Good for you," she sneered, "You finally realized that I hate you, and I piss you off on purpose so that you leave me alone."

Kronos just smirked at her. "How many times have you jumped?" he asked.

"Does it matter?" she asked, wary of him bringing up the jumping issue.

"You've fought this war a few times now, I assume," he continued as if she hadn't spoken. He then began to walk, and she was reluctantly dragged along with him. "Which means you've watched the same people die over and over again."

"Fuck. You."

"Tell me," he demanded.

"Again I say. Fuck. You," she snarled, "I won't ever tell you anything, and nothing you do to me can get me to change my mind."

"We will see," Kronos said calmly, and if Solara weren't already scared, that would have set off alarm bells in her mind. "Now, as we've gone through this before, and you keep giving the wrong answer –"

"Depends on where you stand," she muttered.

"Join me, and you can have everything you've always longed for."

"I doubt that you could give my old life back," she scoffed.

"I have greater power than you can ever comprehend," he countered, "There is very little I can't do."

"I don't care," she said, "I want nothing to do with you or your plots. All you do is use people for your own ends, and then you dispose of them when they're no longer valuable to you." She took a few steps back from him, and she was mildly surprised that she could do that at all. "As I said, I don't care what you do... I won't ever join you."

Kronos smirked again. "Then I suppose, that it is time to convince you... Jumper, Solara, do you remember the void?"

Solara paled at the mention of the void. She never remembered the void when she landed in a new universe. She could remember the feeling of passing through it, but she had no actual memories. As far as she knew her mortal brain couldn't comprehend the void, and so she never had any memories of it. She would hazard a guess that if she were forced to remember it, she'd end up locked away in a padded room for the rest of her life.

"Why?" she asked, trying to think of a way to stall him.

Kronos's smirk had now morphed into a malicious grin. "Let's take a look at those memories, shall we? I wonder if they'll fix you, and I wonder where you'll stand when you come out of it."

Solara tried to turn and run as he walked up to her casually, but even in a dream he could manipulate time. She was practically frozen in place as he sauntered up to her. His hands came up to caress her face. His touch was tender, as if she were a lover, but then his grip turned harsh. She could feel him pressing into her mind, bringing up her blocked memories of the void. He then stretched out the way her mind perceived time, and the few minutes that it took her to travel through the void was suddenly days. Weeks, months, years, and then it was all she could remember.

She never realized she woke up, and she never knew that she had been screaming.

*~S~*

When Solara woke she had no idea where she was. She had been strapped down to the bed, and she tried not to have a panic attack when she realized that she couldn't move.

She actually wanted to know why she was strapped down in the first place. The last thing she remembered was Kronos digging through her mind, but there was an empty slot where she knew that time had passed since then. She couldn't remember anything past Kronos pushing his way into her head. She knew that he had been intending to bring up her memories of the void, but there was nothing there.

Her eyes flew open in a panic. She hadn't felt his presence nearby, but she hadn't recognized her surroundings before, and she wasn't still alive because she just let things go by unnoticed. She began to tug frantically at her bonds, and her breathing was picking up speed, but then she heard a voice gently trying to coax her to relax for a second.

Looking around wildly she finally saw that Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Dionysus, and her father were in the room with her. She relaxed slowly. She still had no idea where she was, but now that she was actually paying attention, she could trust that this wasn't a trick to lull her into a false sense of security.

"How –" she winced at the sound of her voice, it sounded like she was been eating sandpaper and smoking thirty packs of cigarettes a day for a month. She swallowed what little saliva was in her mouth to try and soothe her throat and tried to speak again. "How long?" the words were painful to speak, and she sounded like Katniss had in Mockingjay part 2 after Peeta had nearly choked her to death.

Apollo winced at the sound of her voice and held a cup of water to her lips. "Nearly two months," he said softly as she drank the water slowly, savoring the feeling of it on her damaged throat.

"I don't understand," she said wincing with every word that she forced out, "The last thing I remember was taking a nap." She very purposefully did not mention Kronos. If it really had been that long, then Zeus wouldn't be willing to listen to what had actually happened. The others, yes, they weren't that stubborn. Besides, Apollo and Hades should already know that Kronos was rising up by now. Apollo because of the prophecy thing, and Hades because the underworld was so close to Tartarus that he probably knew that Kronos was strong enough to rise, and had known that for years now.

"Someone attacked your mind while you were sleeping," Dionysus said, and he met her eyes when she looked at him. He didn't say it, but she knew that he knew very well who had done it. "They forced you to remember the void, and then put the memories on a loop, not letting you come out of it."

"I don't remember," Solara shook her head and tried to think of a way to say what she wanted to say in as few words as possible.

"Water from the river Lethe," Hades said quietly from where he was sitting in the corner.

"Dionysus couldn't pull you out of it," Poseidon said when she still looked confused, "It pissed him off too," he added with a small grin.

She huffed out a breathy laugh.

"We had to use Lethe water because..." Apollo trailed off.

"She refused to help," Solara finished for him. She wasn't really surprised, the Titaness of memory wasn't exactly on good terms with the gods, anyone really, and she'd refuse to help her anyway because she was refusing to side with the Titans. She mentally shook those thoughts away. "Thank you," she said looking at all of the gods in the room with her. She knew that they only helped her because she was a jumper, and they wanted her around to give non-answers to their questions, but she was still grateful. She made sure to make eye contact with each of them to show them that meant that as a blanket 'thank you' due to her ruined throat.

Hades gave her a small smile and nodded at her slightly before he disappeared into a shadow. Zeus just grunted and left in a flash of lightning, and she tried not to grin at that, but failed. If he refused to acknowledge that Kronos was rising, then that wasn't her fault.

That left Poseidon, Apollo, and Dionysus in the room.

Solara tugged on one of the restraints and looked at the three gods in question.

"Ah, I suppose those aren't necessary anymore," Dionysus muttered and waved his hand in her direction.

She felt the restraints fall away from her wrists, but her ankles were still secured. "Anymore?" she asked.

"You kept trying to hurt yourself every time you were awake. We eventually put you in a medically induced coma," Apollo shrugged at her.

"Though you'll still have to stay here for the next few days," Dionysus said giving her a look that she was too tired to understand. "The Lethe should have erased your memories, but there's no guarantee. Also, Lethe water hasn't been used on a living person in centuries, not like it was used on you."

"Observation?" she asked already knowing the answer, then looked at the restrains like they were live snakes. "Necessary?" she asked pointing at them.

"While you are asleep, or alone," Poseidon answered, "But a few gods were planning on visiting."

"You mean they wanted to ask question while I was tied down and couldn't bullshit my way out of answering?" she asked sarcastically. Her throat flared with pain, and she winced bringing her hand up to hold her neck as if it would actually help.

Poseidon grinned at her. "Probably the truth of it," he said.

"Is the truth of it," Apollo muttered and handed her a cup of water.

Solara gave them both an unimpressed look. She looked away a second later thinking about how she had lost so much time due to her memory induced insanity. She was grateful that they had erased her memories of the void, but she was still pissed about the gap in her life. "That dick," she whispered and took a sip of water.

Poseidon choked on a laugh. "I don't think I've ever heard someone call him that."

She just smiled sarcastically at him. "Had funnier insults," she said and took another sip of water, "But 'dick' is easier to say right now." Then she realized something, her bracelet wasn't on her wrist. She frowned down at her wrist and then looked up at the three gods in the room. "Where is it?" she asked, and if there was a touch of panic in her voice, well, she would claim that it was because it was also her bow. She'd never admit to the sentimental attachment out loud, and especially not to these three.

"Table," Dionysus said, and if she weren't still restrained by her ankles she'd be trying to punch him for his smirk.

Her gaze snapped to the table next to her bed. It was there, and it still looked the same. She reached out and snatched it up, and then she slipped it back onto her wrist. The piece of coral sitting in her palm, and shining just as it had the day Triton gave it to her nearly twenty years ago.

"Solara," Apollo began sharing a look with Dionysus while Poseidon watched in curiosity, "You can't have that on while –"

"I don't care," she said quickly, and gave her father a cold look, "I'm wearing it."

Poseidon snickered and held his hand out to the other two. "Pay up," he said still grinning.

Solara scowled and rolled her eyes.

*~S~*

Of all the gods to come question her first, she never expected it to be Aphrodite. Though she liked the goddess when she released her wrist restraints without Solara even having to ask.

"A jumper, one half of a soul-pair, and seriously in need of a haircut," the goddess said looking down at her like she was a bug under a magnifying glass.

Solara frowned at her. "What's wrong with my hair?" she asked slightly offended.

Aphrodite frowned, "You haven't seen it since you woke up, have you?" she asked.

Solara threw a pointed glance down at the restraints that usually kept her pinned to the bed. "Nope," she said pooping the 'p'.

Aphrodite shruged. She motioned for her to sit up and sat on the bed behind her. She began to brush out her hair as she talked. "The hair I can fix," she muttered, "And the soul-mate thing I can help you with, but I can't do anything about the jumping."

"No one can," she muttered bitterly, "But it's fine," Solara shrugged indifferently, but she did care, she was tired of starting over.

Aphrodite said nothing at first and just started to brush out her hair. It actually felt kind of nice, and Solara was surprised to find herself relaxing into it. "I was a little shocked to see that you had already met your soul-mate," Aphrodite said jolting Solara out of her daze. "Given the fact that you had met them during your last jump and all."

Solara couldn't stop her flinch at the flippant tone that was used, but it didn't matter. Like this particular goddess would ever notice.

"I was curious to find out who the other half was," she continued, oblivious to Solara's intense desire to no longer have this conversation. "To see that it was Triton though!"

"What's wrong with Triton?" Solara snapped defensively.

Aphrodite paused. "Nothing," she said, but her tone was too light, too carefree. The love goddess hated her soul-mate. "I suppose everyone deserves happiness at some point... and bonus for you two, you are only platonic soul-mates, so you can still have romance in your lives."

Solara tried not to turn around and attempt to strangle Aphrodite. "Romance," she muttered, "Yay." Her hair was now cut at shoulder length and while she trusted Aphrodite to make her look good, she already missed her long hair. It was going to take a year to grow it back out to the length it had been before all of this had happened.

Thankfully someone came into the room before Aphrodite could respond. It was Dionysus, and Solara threw him a pleading look that practically screamed 'save me'. He threw her a look that might have been pity, but she wasn't entirely sure that he could actually pity her. He did shoo Aphrodite out of the room though.

"I think I should talk to someone," Solara said once they were alone.

"Finally," Dionysus muttered, "A hero who knows what they need."

"If they weren't so afraid of you, some of them might actually admit that they need help," she said.

"Don't try to patronize me," Dionysus said glaring at her, and his eyes were starting to glow like they usually did when he was pissed off.

"Annoyed? Exasperated?" Solara said more than asked, "Yes, you do your best to keep the distinction clear, and you show them that you couldn't care less, but they still feel the difference in power... They're afraid of you." She shrugged as his glare intensified, "But that isn't why you're here, is it?"

"One would think that you would be more afraid."

"Maybe I am... or maybe I'm still suffering some kind of after-effects from... well, you know." Solara glanced away before returning her gaze to him, "Would you put me back under?" she asked, "Plant the sickness back inside me, and then leave me to rot? So that you don't have to face what I'm saying? I mean, let's be honest, he did that shit to me so that I'd be out of the way, but what's your reason?"

Dionysus stopped glaring at her and sighed. "Fine, I'll find a therapist for you to talk to," he said, "But it may take a while."

She nodded, "I'm fine with that." She'd have to be after pissing him off like that. "Thank you," she said as he was walking away from her, "For... for helping, with everything."

He didn't even glance behind as he left, but the restraints still wound themselves around her wrists.

*~S~*

A week later she was being released. During that week she had gotten closer to Triton, and that was only because Aphrodite had to go and tell everyone that she and him were soul-mates. While Solara was happy to spend time with him, she irritated that he was there because he felt like he needed to, rather than wanting to be there... or, she thought that that was why he was there. She should probably talk to him about that once she got back to camp.

There was one person that she hadn't seen that she had really wanted to. Not that she had expected him to visit her at all, but it would have been nice. She wondered if she could corner him during the solstice. She doubted it, now that she was thinking of it, but she'd probably try.

"You know, I wonder have you already figured out, all these things that I try to hide? All this time I've been hoping you don't find out, all these things that I hide on the inside. I can't be held responsible, this is all so new to me. Just when I think I'm invincible. You come and happen to me," Solara was singing softly as she stepped out of the bathroom after her shower. Which was probably the best shower she had ever had in her life, and she wished that she could have a bathroom like the ones on Olympus down at camp. They were awesome bathrooms, and kind of reminded her of the Capitol bathrooms in 'The Hunger Games'. She didn't notice that she wasn't alone in the room, so she kept singing as she packed away the shampoo, conditioner, and shower gel that she was shamelessly stealing. "I memorized all the words for you. If you only knew, how much that's just not like me."

Not thinking about Luke was impossible while singing this song. She had tried so hard to fight for him, to help him, and every single time he listened to Kronos. Maybe that was why she had given up on him this time, and maybe that was why she had finally lost it. She had lost the one thing that had kept her going all of these years, and she had never realized that she had nothing for herself. All of her college degrees meant nothing to her, and every mistake she had made in past had meant nothing compared to him.

In the end she had never meant the same to him though. Losing that ignorance had pushed her over the edge.

And apparently she had had to lose her mind before she could come to that realization.

"I fully support this kind of thievery."

Solara gasped and spun around quickly to see Hermes leaning against the wall next to the door. He was typing away on his phone, but he did glance up long enough to smirk at her. "It's really nice soap," was the only thing that she could think to say. It was too. It was from Lush, and it just happened to be her favorite products too. She hadn't been able to order any out of fear of it getting stolen, but she was definitely hiding these away for as long as possible.

"Ready to go?" Hermes asked her, slipping his phone into a pocket.

She did a quick glance around the room that she had been stuck in. "Yeah," she said and closed her bag before slinging it over one shoulder.

Hermes nodded at her and turned to lead the way out. She followed him silently. She had wanted to see him for the past week, but now that he was in front of her, she couldn't think of a single thing to say. The silence stretched out awkwardly between them, and she hoped that it was just her that felt like she was drowning in a sea of awkwardness.

Solara hid behind her hair when they reached the more populated streets of Olympus. The whispering and the staring was really starting to get to her by the time they reached the bridge that connected Olympus to the elevator that would take her back down to the mortal world. She was glad to leave the gossip behind, but she wasn't so glad to have to walk across open air thousands of feet above the city.

"You acted like you were going to help him years ago," Hermes said as they were crossing the bridge.

"Luke," she said more than asked, "Yeah, because I did." she swallowed and shook her head, "But nothing ever changes... his fate isn't anything I can do about."

"Then why the jumping?" he asked harshly turning suddenly to face her.

She stopped and looked up at him. He was furious, but not near as furious she had been when she had figured out that she could never save him. He hadn't watched Luke die four times already. "I'm not entirely sure," she lied, and she wished that the truth would have been easier for him to accept. "Maybe to make his death mean more than what it has meant in the past... Maybe I'm meant to help you come to terms with it." As soon as she said the words she regretted them.

"How could you possibly help me?" he asked.

More than a little offended by that she glared up at him, not bothering to hide the hurt growing inside her. "I've watched him die four times," she said taking a step forward, getting into his personal space, "I have tried nearly everything I can think of to save him. To change his mind, to help him through his fuck-ton of issues, and don't even try to deny them!" She glared harder when he opened his mouth to argue, "The most I have ever been able to accomplish is help him forgive you. To show him that you have always cared, and that while he had some very good reasons to be angry, they weren't enough to start a war."

Solara sighed and took a step back. "But he isn't the only one hurting," she said looking at him sadly, "You are too, and no one really sees it."

"And you do?"

"What can I say?" she said with a tiny smirk, "I copy my father, and I pretend that everything I know isn't crushing me from the inside out." She shrugged at his shocked look. "I've had nearly a century to see what the others never will, or will never know about until it's too late for them... All of those years I learned how to hide. What I was feeling, seeing... events that were going to happen.

"You know," she said, "There are slight differences in every universe. So, thankfully I don't know everything, but I usually know enough. Every jump has only given me more, and all of this pain can only stop one of two ways. Burn it out with anger, and pretend that you aren't dying a little everyday because of it."

"And the other?" Hermes asked when she paused just trying to breathe.

"Embrace it," she said, "Let it in. Let it tell you why it's there, and then try and do what you can to mend what's broken. Because ignoring it has never worked, and that's why this war is brewing... because no one wanted to address the issues that are there."

Hermes snorted and looked away. "I guess I shouldn't argue with a jumper on this," he muttered.

Solara shrugged and gave him a small, tired smile. "Argue away if it helps. I won't stop you, but it won't change what I'll say either."

Hermes didn't say anything. He just turned around and led her over to the elevator. "Your ride is waiting for you," he said once she was in the elevator.

Solara watched as the doors slid closed and took him out of her sight. She swore that he looked either sad or confused, but without being able to still see him, she had no idea which it would be.

Maybe she shouldn't have said anything yet.

She sighed and leaned against the back wall of the elevator. So many things had happened in the last few weeks, and it was exhausting to think of them all.

Luke had outed the fact that he was working for Kronos, and had tried to kill Percy so that he couldn't warn anyone. Kronos had tried to get her out of the game by making her lose her damn mind, or maybe just out of the way until after Luke left the camp, but that hadn't worked due to some greedy gods. (Not that she'd complain about that part.) She had woken up weeks later with no memories as to what had happened after going to take a nap. Then she finds out that she's platonic soul-mates with Triton.

She really hadn't been that surprised by the last one. The confirmation had been nice to have though.

Solara had also realized that she still loved Luke. Maybe not in the same way as she had in the past, but it was still there. It was just as painful as ever, and knowing that she would never mean as much to him... She was so tired. She wished, and not for the first time, that she could walk way from it all. It getting to be more painful than she could deal with.

Solara leaned her head back and closed her eyes. "And 'cause I love you, I'll let you that's what you want, but I hope you know, my love won't stop," she sang softly ignoring the music that was slowly driving her nuts as the elevator moved downwards.

She decided then to let go of the past. To really let it go in her heart. Luke would never be hers. She'd care, she would always care, and she'd never stop loving him... but she needed to live her own life. She needed to do what the book had said. Granted it only had Triton's and Hermes's names in it, but she was beginning to figure out what they needed.

When the elevator doors opened she took a deep breath before she stepped out. She was starting her life over, and she had honestly thought that there would have been better music at this part. But she started her life over to the sound of 'Stayin' Alive'.

"Gods, I hate that song," she muttered and walked out of the building.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that happened. Also, this is the longest chapter so far! (Just over 5k.) Hope you liked it.
> 
> The chapter title is taken from the song 'Breaking Inside' by Shinedown.
> 
> Please leave something friendly before you go. :)


	7. the people who upset you are now my enemies too

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer - See chapter one.  
> Notes - This chapter is lighter on emotions and drama. Hope you enjoy!

Starting over was easier said than done. She had come back to camp just as cabin eleven had nearly torn itself in half. No one outside of cabin eleven would ever know the arguments that were being held behind closed doors, but there were many that were taking place.

The arguments? They were about joining Luke and the Titans, and why they should or shouldn't do it.

Solara was back to avoiding being in the cabin in general. She knew quite well that Connor and Travis could handle the dissenters on their own. Some might leave, but they were the ones who had always been looking for a chance to. The ones who left were the ones that everyone had always known not to trust anyway.

"They're leaving," Travis told her one day during breakfast. No one around them was really paying attention to them, and only Connor was nearby enough to overhear their conversation properly.

"Bitter, angry people do that," Solara said casually looking over at Travis like she was unsure of why he was telling her this.

"Everyone is," he hissed and stabbed his eggs with his fork, "That isn't enough of a reason to start a civil war!"

"It was enough when it was Zeus and Poseidon," Solara said, "What makes this any different?"

Travis paused. "They fight all of the time," he said, but he didn't even sound convinced of that himself.

Solara put her last bite of hash-browns in her mouth so that she'd have time to think of an answer. "Anarchy," she finally said, "I suppose the promise that things will be vastly different is what is driving them... Granted I could be talking about things I know nothing about, but they want change, and he's promising them that." She shrugged, "They were always going to leave," she said, "This just gave them a better option that going it alone in the mortal world."

"People are going to die because of this," Travis muttered.

"Yes," she agreed, "That's what people do though... Live, die, get judged in the afterlife." She shook her head sadly, "People make the wrong decisions all of the time, but I think that it is our motivations that really show us who we are to each other."

"You would forgive them?"

Solara smiled and stood up. "Forgiveness has never been about absolving others of their sins," she said, "It's about setting yourself free of your anger, pain, and hurt." She walked away, and he didn't call after her. She wondered if they would understand yet, or if it would take awhile. It wasn't an easy concept to accept, and it had taken her twenty years into her first jump to understand it herself.

This war was never going to be about right or wrong. It was about preserving humanity, and letting go of all the pain they all had and would cause each other before the end. Most would realize that, but Solara wondered if it would be enough.

*~S~*

She finally got a chance to talk to Triton about a week before the solstice. She had been sitting next to a small fire that she had made next to the water. Thankfully being a child of Apollo offered her a bit of natural heat, so she wasn't near as cold as she should have been. Then he had appeared out of thin air scaring her half to death.

"What the shit?" she said, and she had already pulled out her knife, but she hadn't thrown it. She was actually kind of proud of herself for not throwing it at him. "Are you trying to scare me into a not-so-early grave?"

"Not even," he said, and he didn't look amused by her joke.

"Then I'll tell you what I told your father, don't scare me like that! I can actually be sent into cardiac arrest because of it."

He frowned, but he nodded anyway. "I wanted to talk to you about something," he said.

"Those words are never good to hear," she muttered, "But okay, what about?"

"Our relationship," he said, "I wanted to ask why you've been holding back. Before you were stuck in the memory, you seemed fine to get to know me, but after, you seemed to pull away a bit. What happened?"

Solara sighed. "I wanted us to have a chance to get to know each other before the whole soul-mate thing had been brought into the mix. I'm not ashamed of you," she said when she caught sight of his unhappy frown, "I just wanted us to not have to deal with the whole, 'you are perfect to each other, automatically be happy together' without at least trying to get to know each other before everyone just pushed us into a relationship that we hadn't even had yet."

"So, you think that I was visiting you out of a sense of obligation?" he asked.

"I don't know, were you?" she asked.

Triton sighed. "I don't know," he admitted, "I wanted the same thing honestly. I knew from the moment I met you that you were important, but I wanted to know you before anything else added complications to it... So, I guess I get what you're saying. It's more complicated now because we know."

"I'm not going to like this, am I?" she asked.

"No idea, but I know that I'm not happy with the events as they unfolded," he said, "Anyway, we need to be around each other more often now. Being aware of the fact that we're soul-mates means that we need to be near each other until the bond grows and settles."

Solara wondered exactly how long that would take, because the war was going to be on them in a matter of years, and she knew that it would be impossible to see him when the war came to the sea kingdom first. "Sounds doable," she said, "I mean, it'll probably make you slack off on your duties a bit, but I'm sure we could figure it out."

Triton smiled and laughed a bit. "Are you naturally this optimistic, or are you just doing it for me?"

"Can't both be true?" she asked with a grin.

"I suppose," he said, and was smiling himself, "Anyway, the closeness might be the only effect of Aphrodite spilling the news, but I get that we both had wanted to let this grow on it's own without outside interference."

Solara laughed. "I wanted that, yes. I also knew that at some point, outside interference was going to happen. So I guess I was just annoyed that it had happened so soon." she shrugged at him. "We'll manage, and maybe things aren't going how we wanted them to, but at least we aren't stupid enough to try and ignore it."

"Too true."

*~S~*

The winter solstice was upon them. Solara wasn't entirely sure if she was happy to be back on Olympus already, or not. The last time she had been insane, her memory had been wiped, and she had been strapped to a bed because no trusted her not to hurt herself. The time before that had, arguably, been worse. It had been the end of the war again, and Luke was possessed, and he had sacrificed himself again.

Dear gods, she actually was starting to hate this place. This beautiful place, that held so much pain, and hid so many lies from the others.

She wished that she could have just stayed at camp.

That wasn't an option though. So once they had gotten there she had slipped away from the rest of the group and had gone to sit in a park that was usually abandoned on the solstice. She never knew why no one ever came to this park on the solstice, and it really was never important enough for her to find out. She leaned against the the railing and looked down on the city miles below her.

Humming softly to herself, Solara wondered how long it would take for someone to notice that she had wandered off. She hoped that no one did notice.

"Your father is a brat," someone said as they walked up and leaned against the railing next to her, "You know that?"

"He has his moments," she defended looking over to see Poseidon looking irritated.

"You defend everyone, don't you?" he scoffed.

"Not everyone," she said, "But a lot, yeah, I guess I do."

"He refuses to claim you," Poseidon said when she was trying to think of a way to ask.

She twitched violently at that. "Doesn't surprise me," she said, and even she knew that her attempt to hide the pain that that had just caused had failed. "He never has before," she muttered and looked back down on the city, "I never expected that to change."

"Hades is pissed at him too."

Solara shrugged, none of that really made a difference to her. "That's nice."

"How are you doing?" Poseidon asked, sensing that she really didn't care to talk about Apollo.

"What?" she asked, not sure why he was asking.

"Did the memories come back?" he asked, "Because if someone else knew about them, they'd be able to plant them back in your head."

"Fucking fuck," she muttered, "I'm fine, but thank you for now making never want to sleep again... and don't tell me that I wouldn't need to be asleep. I have enough paranoia already."

"Fine," Poseidon laughed.

Solara scowled. "There are flashes," she muttered, "Like the memories weren't completely wiped, but they don't last very long, and they're really fuzzy... almost like it was a dream."

"Just flashes?"

"Just flashes," she said nodding, "So," she said wanting to change the subject again, "How's um... shit."

"You don't have a good subject change, do you?" he asked with a grin.

"Ah, no," she said, "I really don't."

"You know, soul-mates are rare," he said making her immediately want to run away. She might have talked to Triton about it, and they might have come to agree about things, but she had no desire to talk about it with Poseidon. "But immortals that have found their soul-mates are even rarer."

"Is this a 'if you hurt my son I'll turn you to ash' speech?" she asked looking up at him warily.

"No," he said looking at her seriously, "It would be if you were only dating... Actually you'd be the one hurt in the end," he muttered, "But, that's not the point. If I were to hurt you, I'd only hurt him."

Solara bit her tongue. They both knew that Poseidon had already hurt Triton over the years, but she wasn't stupid enough to say that to his face. "I lost him once," she said, "I don't want to do that again."

"I don't think you'd survive that again."

She'd never say it, but she kind of thought that he was right.

"So, given that you're soul-mates with my son," Poseidon said, and the mischievous gleam he had in his eyes made Solara want to run away again. "It can be argued that you're also my daughter."

She froze. Barely remembering to breathe she looked up at him wondering if this was going where she thought it was. "I suppose," she said.

"Good," he said and pushed off of the railing and held out a hand to her, "Glad we agree on that."

Solara eyed him wondering what he wanted, but she just shrugged mentally. If he wanted her to know, she would. She took his hand, and he tucked her's into the crook of his arm, and the he escorted her back to the party. Once they had gotten there she was expecting him to let go, but he didn't. He led her over to Triton and smoothly handed her over and took his wife and disappeared into the crowd. Staring after him she wondered if any of the gods would ever fully make sense to her.

"What is it?" Triton asked.

"I'm not sure if I'm afraid of him," she nodded in the direction Poseidon had went, "Or if he confuses the hell out of me."

Triton snorted. "You will probably never get beyond that," he said grinning at her.

She shrugged, "I honestly never expect to."

Triton laughed and tugged her out on the dance-floor. The dance he pulled her into was a slow one, and she was more than happy to just stand there with her arms wrapped around him swaying softly. He seemed calmer during their dance as well, and she thought that he was thinking the same thing as she was.

They never wanted this to end.

*~S~*

There was a glowing green trident hovering over her head.

Solara reached up to poke at it. Connor snorted next to her. Travis choked on a laugh. The rest of the camp was sitting in shocked silence.

"You vague asshole," she said. The glowing trident turned into water that dropped onto her, soaking her fully as if she had been standing in the rain for an hour. "Psh, whatever man," she muttered and stood up grabbing her plate as she did so. "You know you still give a fuck." She meandered her way over to the table that was reserved for Poseidon. She sat down and went back to eating.

"Barnacle beard actually went through with it," Dionysus muttered, and even he was staring her in shock. Considering everyone was still in stunned silence the entire population of the dining pavilion heard him.

Solara looked over at him then sighed and stood up again. She turned so that she could see everyone clearly. "I am not biologically his daughter," she said, "But I fail to see why I should explain beyond that... Can we all move on with our lives now?"

The campers all shrugged at each other and went back to their meals and conversations.

"Thank you," she muttered and sat back down.

After dinner she packed her things up and moved into cabin three. She wasn't too thrilled with the prospect of being alone until Percy came back to camp, but she was happy to have a bed to sleep on again. There was just no winning in life. She bitched about the awkward staring that she had just had to endure to herself as she brushed her teeth and got ready for bed. She was also kind of pissed that she hadn't even been properly warned about this happening.

"What even is my life?" she asked with a sigh as she turned out the lights and crawled into bed.

*~S~*

Triton visited her once a week after the solstice. He even began to teleport her to her therapy sessions, and they'd spend an hour walking around the city afterwards. She really wasn't happy at camp anymore, she felt too different after her years of jumping, and he was still pissed about Poseidon fathering Percy.

"I don't understand why you hate him so much," Solara said one day in late April. They had stopped at a Starbucks, and she wasn't even surprised to find out that gods loved Starbucks just as much as the rest of the world. "I mean, Percy didn't ask to be born."

Triton paused and set down his salted-caramel whatever. It had caramel, and Solara couldn't stand the taste of caramel so she hadn't paid that much attention to his order this time. "I... I never thought of it that way," he said.

"He has," she said and took a sip of her drink, "When he found out that he and Thalia have to suffer the punishment for their parents breaking their oaths," she said when he looked shocked, "He was angry that they had to suffer for something they had no say in."

"Damn," he muttered, "I guess I can understand that."

"He didn't ask for your father to cheat on your mother," she said looking him in the eye.

Triton nodded. He picked up his drink again. "Let's go visit my brother then."

"Wait, what?" she asked.

Triton pulled her up from her seat, and it was claimed by someone else within seconds. A poor college student by the looks of it, who looked stressed and had a laptop with them.

She was pulled out of the building and down the street. Solara shook her head, as far as she knew, this had never happened before, and she wondered if this was going to backfire in a horrible way later down the line. Getting tired of him pulling on her hand she tugged against him lightly, in answer he slowed down so that they were walking side by side.

"You know that you showing up out of the blue is going to scare the pee out of him," she said, "His mother too probably."

Triton snorted. "The pee?" he asked a grin flashing in her direction.

"Yes," she said, "I've found that I really only cuss around impressionable people."

"Children," he corrected, and turned down a street that would get them to the Jacksons's apartment building faster.

"Whatever," she said, "I also only cuss when severely pissed off."

"Most people do."

She shrugged. They walked in silence for another ten minutes. "Why do you want to go see him?" she finally asked when they were only three blocks away.

"Because," Triton sighed, "Because I want to meet him where he has the slight advantage."

Solara wisely chose not to say anything about the 'slight' part. "You mean you want to meet him outside of the sea," she said instead.

"Yeah," he muttered.

"Okay."

Once there Solara tried to get him to let her wait outside, but Triton would hear of it. Sighing unhappily she climbed up the stairs behind him. She also practically hid behind him when he knocked on their door. At the last possible second he pulled out from behind him so that she'd be standing next to him when the door opened.

Solara was actually somewhat relieved to see that Percy had been the one to answer it. "Hi," she said with a wave, "I was in the neighborhood for therapy when he decided that he wanted to visit his new brother."

Triton scowled at her and Percy looked mildly scared and irritated, she just smiled blandly at them both. Percy then sighed and opened the door wider signaling for them to come in. Solara grinned when she heard Percy mutter that he was happy that his mother wasn't home. Triton relaxed next to her, so she knew that he had heard as well. She wandered over to the window and left the siblings standing awkwardly in the middle of the living room.

"Oh, for the love of all that's beautiful in the world!" Solara exclaimed in exasperation after a tense five minutes. She turned so that she could glare at Triton. "This was your idea," she reminded him, "So maybe using words would be a good idea. I do have to be back at camp by dinner you know."

Percy looked at her in shock. "So, you two know each other?" he asked when Triton still didn't say anything.

"Platonic soul-mates," she said, "We're pretty much a package deal now... also I was moved into cabin three."

"Oh, that's cool, being alone kind of sucked. Okay," Percy turned back to Triton, "Can I help you?"

Solara snickered into her drink. The poor kid sounded so confused by the turn of events, and the bombshells dropped on him. To think he had probably only planned on eating dinner and avoiding his homework for the night. He got Solara and a suddenly mute Triton instead.

"You're different," Triton finally said.

"I'm sorry?" Percy said.

Solara rolled her eyes.

"You're different," Triton repeated, "All of the others were arrogant snots."

"So are you," Solara said.

"Exactly!" Triton said looking at her in shock. "He's too nice to be my brother!"

"Oh my gods," Solara whispered, her eyes wide, "You've lost it... I'm no longer the only one in the room who needs therapy."

Percy was staring at them both in shock. "Yeah," he said reminding them about where they were, "I'm still really confused. Can one of you please explain?"

Triton was too busy staring at Percy like he was from another planet, so Solara had to explain. "He wanted to meet you," she said, "I had pointed out to him that it wasn't your fault that your father cheated on his mother, and that you really shouldn't be blamed for it... along with a few other things. Then he randomly decided that he wanted to meet you." She shrugged at him and walked back over to Triton. She looked at him slightly worried that he hadn't said anything in awhile, and hadn't moved either that she could tell. Frowning she poked him lightly. "Did you turn yourself into a statue?" she asked.

Triton didn't even twitch.

"Okay," she said taking a couple steps back so that she was next to Percy, "You're really beginning to scare me."

"He can't be real."

Solara sighed at the weak sounding words. She turned and poked Percy in the arm making him yelp in surprise. "He feels real," she turning back to Triton.

Percy snorted. "I think we broke him," he said, and if Solara hadn't known different 'Percy's over her lifetime she might have been shocked by the slightly evil grin he wore. As it was she was trying not to let her own grin take over her face, so she tried to avoid looking at him.

"Triton!" she said loudly, "Pull yourself together, or I'm going to ruin your 'I'm an asshole' reputation you have... and I'll tell Percy exactly how he can help me do it."

"Ruining reputations?" Percy asked, "I'm in."

Triton snapped out of his shocked state. "Don't you dare," he hissed glaring at Solara.

"Finally," she sniffed then proceeded to ignore him in favor of looking at Percy. "You wouldn't believe how much shit I can get away with these days," she said with a grin.

"I'd probably die of shock," he agreed, "Anyway... is there anything else you guys needed, because I've got three chapters of 'The Lord of the Flies' to read."

"Ugh, no," Solara said, "Don't torture yourself kid, SparkNotes the hell out of that book. I read it once, and I couldn't even bring myself to read the whole thing. I think I gave up about halfway through then skipped to the end to read the last forty pages."

"Did you miss much?" he asked.

"Nope," she said and decided that they would leave Percy to his homework. "Anyway," she said and grabbed onto Triton and dragged him towards the door, "He owes me more Starbucks for scaring the hell out of me." Solara paused when they reached the door, she remembered something that she had wanted to tell Percy the next time she saw him. "Wait for me downstairs?" she asked Triton.

"Is this about what you and Uncle Hades talked about?" he asked.

"Yep."

Triton nodded. "I'll wait for you in the stairwell."

Solara watched the door shut behind him. Triton might already know what she was going to tell Percy, but she knew that he hadn't wanted to be around for that. She sighed and turned back towards Percy. "I talked to Lord Hades on the solstice," she said, "I might not have met the guy, but I can spot trouble a mile away, and I thought that you'd like to know that Gabe was sentenced to the Fields of Punishment."

Percy blinked. "I can't say I'm surprised by that," he said, "I guess it would be useless to ask you how you knew about him."

Solara nodded. "You have a habit of wanting to ask the complicated questions," she said, "And while I would love to talk about it with someone... that someone can't be you."

"Do you know the future or something?"

"Something like that," she said, "But I can't give you more than that."

Percy nodded. "I don't think I want to know the future anyway."

Solara gave him a brilliant smile. "That, is an incredibly wise choice." She nodded at him once, then turned and left him alone in his apartment again. She met up with Triton in the stairwell, and he had already gotten her another drink from Starbucks. "Thanks," she said as she plucked it from his hand.

"How'd he take it?" he asked.

"Pretty calmly," she said, "But if you had met the man, you wouldn't be surprised by that."

"How bad was he?" Triton asked and they began to go down the stairs.

"Not as bad as he could have been," she said, "But worse than they ever deserved."

"That's fucked up."

Solara slung an arm around his waist, and he threw an arm around her shoulders. "Let's not think about anymore depressing topics," she said, "Let's just walk for a bit more before you have to take me back."

"Happily," Triton said, and pulled her out onto the street again.

They walked aimlessly until she finished her drink. After that they ducked into an empty alley and he transported them back to camp.

*~S~*

She really should have known that someone was going to notice how tense she was. May had come in a rush, and Solara wondered if she had just stopped paying attention to the passage of time for a bit. She had been hoping to forget about what was about to happen, but she couldn't. She wondered how pissed certain people were going to be, especially with her, and she knew that there was no getting out of it this time.

"Why do I get the feeling that something bad is about to happen?" Triton asked her one day after he had brought her back to camp after her therapy appointment.

Solara had already sprawled out on her bed in cabin three. "Because something bad is about to happen," she said and threw an arm over her face to cover her eyes. "A lot of bad things are going to happen actually, and I'm getting my own feeling that I don't have the luxury of sitting on the sidelines anymore."

"Is that what you've done every time before?" he asked and nudged her over so that he could lay down next to her.

"Sort of," she muttered. Her stomach twisted at the mental reminder that she had tried to change things once. She had made all of the wrong choices for only some of the right reasons, and she was too afraid to tell anyone about her once-betrayal. Triton would stand by her and forgive her, but she doubted that the others would do anything similar.

"You hate not knowing what to do, don't you?" he asked.

"I have all of this knowledge," she said, "But... I never know what to do with it, and I never know if I'm making the right choice or not... I tried doing more once before, but I almost got so many people killed because of it."

"Helping the wrong person?" Triton asked his tone painfully neutral.

"I learned my lesson the hard way," she said, and she was tensing up waiting for the anger to make itself know. "I just... I loved him, but giving an angry person gasoline will only enable them to start a fire."

"You're ashamed," he said quietly.

She moved her arm so that she could look him in the eye. "There isn't much that I truly feel regret and shame for," she said seriously wanting him to know that she meant every word she was speaking, "But this... I will always be ashamed of what I did."

Triton sighed and pulled her into a hug. She ended up half laying on top of him, and her head was pillowed on his chest. "I won't tell anyone," he promised.

"Thanks," she whispered.

She ended up missing dinner that night. She had fallen asleep like that, and Triton hadn't had the heart to wake her up. They had slept peacefully until the sun rose again. When it did and Solara woke up, she could already feel the difference in the air.

The tree had been poisoned.

Triton transported them both to the top of the hill. Solara reached out to lightly touch one of the branches, but when the needles just fell off at her touch she jerked her hand back. This time the tree being poisoned hurt more than it ever had. She had been with Thalia when she had been turned into a tree this time. They both had been trying to help each other.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, "I'm so sorry." She crashed down to her knees, or she would have if Dionysus hadn't grabbed her by her wrists.

"Why didn't you say anything?" he asked.

Solara shook her head. While she knew that Dionysus didn't really care about Thalia, she also knew that Zeus was going to be pissed about his daughter being on the brink of death again. "I didn't know when it was going to happen," she said. It was a lie, and everyone present knew it too.

A few different emotions seemed to pass through Dionysus before he settled on something that she couldn't quite decipher. "What is it?" he asked, "What poison is it?"

Solara shook her head, this question she could answer honestly. "I don't know. Something so old no one knows a cure, if there even is one."

"Why don't I believe you?" Dionysus asked his eyes glowing with purple fire.

Solara began to shake. She could feel any and all progress she had made in the last three months fade away as if she hadn't been trying at all. "I swear, I don't know what it is," she said desperately. She could feel the tears dripping down her cheeks as her vision clouded over, and she wondered why Triton wasn't trying to help her. "I don't know who did this," she said trying to pull out of Dionysus's grasp, "And I don't know what poison it is."

Dionysus let her go and she fell to the ground. The fogginess in her head receded enough for her to sense him and Chiron walking away. Triton picked her up and transported them to the beach, but once they were there she pushed him away.

Still shaking and still crying she glared at him. It probably wasn't that effective due to her drowned rat look, but it would get her feelings across. "I see that despite the fact that I'm your soul-mate, my mental health still isn't all that important in the grand scheme of things," she spat.

"That isn't why I didn't try to stop him," Triton said, and she really wanted to punch him for sounding so damn calm.

"Enlighten me then!"

"He's stronger than I am!"

Solara paused, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She tried to stop crying, but the most she could do was slow the tears and stop the shaking. "I'm sorry," she said opening her eyes again. She noticed that he looked more worried about her than usual, which really meant that he actually showed that worried in the first place. "I'm not... I'm not really okay right now," she swallowed and held back the flinch when he moved towards her, "I keep forgetting that you both are gods," she said, "I keep forgetting that he can, and obviously will, do something like that without any warning. As many times as I've done this, I don't think I've ever been this close to losing my fucking mind." Solara shook her head, "And I never thought that he'd go there after everything that's happened in the last year."

Triton pulled her into a loose hug. "I'm so sorry," he whispered. "I know how hard it is for you to trust anyone. I didn't think he'd go there either."

"It's Thalia," Solara muttered and buried her face into his neck, "You know how upset Zeus is going to be... I don't have to like it, but if he uses force now, then no one can say that I was lying, and no one can tell anyone to question me again."

"He's still an asshole."

Solara just giggled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah, this went in a direction I never planned on, but I think we're all going to have fun with this. And yeah, that really wasn't as light as it could have been, but it's better than the last chapter.
> 
> The chapter title is taken from the song 'Fear The Future' by Emma Blackery. (Yes, her again, because I lover her music, and she's great.)
> 
> Please leave something friendly on your way out. :)


	8. love is not just a word, it's a noun and a verb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who left kudos, you guys rock. :)

When Tantalus arrived at camp Solara felt like crying and hiding in her cabin and never coming out. He had tried to say that she couldn't leave to go to therapy, but Dionysus had over-ruled him. She now had new restrictions; Triton wasn't allowed to take her there and back, and she could only go to therapy and back, no more wandering in the city. Triton's visits were also restricted; he could only visit her at camp, he couldn't say for longer than an hour every two weeks, and he wasn't allowed to bring her Starbucks.

Solara really wanted to kill Tantalus a second time.

Percy showed up on the last day that Chiron was allowed to be at camp. She would have felt bad for him and Annabeth when she saw how depressed they were to see him leaving, but given how many campers she had just helped Lee and Will heal, she wasn't in the mood.

Not seeing Triton since the tree being poisoned hadn't helped. Sure they had found loopholes in the new rules, but it wasn't enough. Once this was over, she really hoped that she wouldn't have to be separated from him again for a good long while. She hadn't realized how much he had begun to help her in the last few months until that help wasn't available anymore.

Solara kind of wanted to strangle Dionysus with his own damn grapevines.

She sat down with a sigh. Since no one had wanted to be near Tantalus they had set up a makeshift infirmary in cabin seven. This having been the first time she had ever set foot inside cabin seven, including every past universe she'd been in, Solara had to say that she was happy to be staying in cabin three. Less people to have to deal with on a regular basis.

"I've been trying to figure out what to call the color of your eyes," Lee said as he sat down next to her.

"Sunlight through a glass of whiskey," she muttered with a grin.

"That was poetic."

"I didn't come up with it," she said, "But a simpler answer is amber. My eyes are amber in color."

"I see," he said, and leaned against the wall like she was doing. "So... why were you..."

"Claimed by Poseidon?" she asked for him, and have him an unimpressed look. "What I said after the solstice still stands."

"Not claimed by our father?" he asked instead.

"What makes you think I know?" she scoffed, "I mean, I've been here nearly a year now, and I've never asked, and I also kind of don't care... If he wanted to claim me, he could have, still can if we're going to be honest here. He hasn't though, and I've got other shit to deal with."

"Like your mental health?"

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, like that." she then got up and walked quickly out of the cabin and then up to the dining pavilion. Meals were now mandatory, and she was just annoyed enough to want to watch Tantalus chase after food. She slipped into her usual seat at the third table, and waited for everyone to file in as well. She got her dinner and made her customary sacrifice, and then waited for the show to begin.

Solara watched as Tantalus managed to push nearly all of Percy's buttons with Dionysus's help, and even watching him try to eat wasn't enough of an entertainment to make up for it. She glared openly at Dionysus when he told Percy to sit down at the table where no one ever wanted to sit. Ever since the tree had been poisoned she had been invisible, unless it was to put even more restrictions on her. She had been ordered to report to him every time she left for an appointment, and she had been put on permanent kitchen duty.

Percy sat next to her silently, and they traded irritated looks. He also looked like he really wanted to ask some questions, but given how quiet it was, neither of them felt like talking would be a good idea. They watched in semi-amused silence as Tantalus kept trying to chase down his food and drink.

Solara had to resist the urge to throw a biscuit at Tantalus's head when he announced the reinstatement of the chariot races. Despite knowing that it was going to happen every time, it always managed to shock her that he would do something that insane. She had to applaud Will for trying to stop them, and Clarisse too while she was at it.

"Not to mention four cases of permanent paralysis," she muttered to Percy after Will had made his statement about deaths and mutilations.

He then seemed to be waiting for more snarky commentary from her while Clarisse tried to stop the races as well, but she was too busy glaring at Tantalus. He looked like he really wanted to ask why she cared so much about Thalia's tree. She shook her head at him and mouthed 'later' to him. He sighed, but nodded all the same.

When Tantalus started going on about where Tyson was going to stay, Solara sighed and let her head fall onto her arms that were folded on top of the table. She had no desire to watch Percy's reaction to Tyson being claimed by Poseidon. She already knew that he was embarrassed by Tyson, and he, like every other teenager in existence, was angry and embarrassed by his father.

'It always goes back to the daddy issues,' she thought with a sigh, 'Why can't it ever be anything else?'

The campfire hadn't been made mandatory yet, so Solara slipped away from the crowd when they were making their way there. She really wanted to go to the beach, but if her absence was noticed then that would be the first place anyone would look. She went to cabin three instead.

Once she was there and inside, she flopped backwards onto her bed. She was actually kind of happy to not be alone anymore. Percy and Tyson wouldn't make up for the fact that she could barely see Triton, but they were miles above being alone with no one to pull her out of her downward spirals. (And there had been a few since the tree had been poisoned.) Granted she could usually pull herself out by immersing herself in a fictional world, but another person to distract her was always better. She sighed and rolled over onto her side, pulling the blanket over with her. She really didn't care that she was still fully dressed, or that she was laying more on the blanket than it was covering her; she fell asleep before Percy and Tyson even got there.

*~S~*

Solara took it upon herself to introduce Tyson to Hephastus's kids. She knew that none of them would give a damn that he was a cyclops. They would only care that he could craft weapons and other things like they could.

The first day Tyson made her a bracelet made of green and gold interlocking rings. The next day he had asked for her sword, and she handed it over without question. She had been in the room when Beckendorf had told Tyson about hiding weapons in mundane objects. She was kind of excited to see what they came up with.

They ended up making it into another charm. It was a pure gold trident hanging from a chain of bright green interlocking rings. She hooked it to the green and gold bracelet that Tyson had already made her. Now she had matching weapon bracelets, and while she was happy and grateful, she was slightly worried that Percy was getting jealous of their friendship. She knew that Percy cared about Tyson, but he was also reluctant to accept that Tyson was his half-brother. Tyson in turn adored Percy, he was over the moon with the thought that his first friend was also his brother.

She could also see that Tyson was hurt by Percy's unwillingness to see him the same way. She wanted to help, but she wasn't sure how to without breaking herself.

"You know," she said one day when she and Percy were sparring. She dodged Percy's strike and tapped the carvings on her bow to make it shrink. The trident charm swung up into her hand, she tightened her hand into a fist around it and jerked her hand to the side. Her sword expanded and she brought it up just in time to block Percy's next strike. "I'm not a therapist, I see one, but don't you think you should... Oh, I don't know, stop denying the Tyson is your brother?" She and Percy traded a few more attacks and blocks, then she tapped the guard twice with her thumb, and swung the music note charm into her other hand. Jerking her hand she ducked and spun out of the way of another attack. She took a few steps back and pulled an arrow out of her quiver.

Percy sighed and dodged the arrow., and it burst into brightly colored glitter when it hit the ground. "He's not really –"

"Let me stop you there," she cut off his repeated denial, "I'm going to give you something to think about." She used his momentary distraction to fire another arrow at him, he didn't dodge this time. "With all of this denial you're spewing, have you ever thought that maybe it just might be getting back to Tyson?" she asked, her voice laced with sarcasm, and tried not to grin when Percy ended up covered in glitter.

He shook his head to get the glitter out of his hair. "Is it?" he asked.

"Is that relevant to you accepting that he's your half-brother?" she shot back.

He didn't answer.

"You accepted Triton," she said and shrank her bow back down. "Why can't it extend to Tyson as well? He thinks the world of you, and would only offer unconditional acceptance and love... and you want to push that away?" Solara shook her head at him, and began to walk away then paused and turned back. "Your father is one of the rare ones," she said, "He actually gives a fuck, and that includes _all_ of his children, not just the demigod ones... maybe you should give a fuck about _both_ of your brothers."

*~S~*

Therapy was her only escape from her life at the moment. She both dreaded and adored leaving camp to go to therapy. Dreaded, because as much as she knew that she needed to, and wanted to talk, she hated the need to be vulnerable to another person. She adored it because she could show weakness to another person without having to worry about what they thought. (She was already going to go see her because she was too messed up to deal with her shit on her own after all.)

Solara was happy to learn that she was going to miss the chariot race due to having an appointment scheduled at the same time. She had no doubt that Tantalus and Dionysus would punish her for not being there, but she'd take it over getting pecked half to death.

Triton appeared in her car when she was half a mile away from camp. She shot him a weak smile, but neither of them said anything until they actually reached the city.

"So... is your therapist still acting decent?" he asked casually.

"She's not her father," Solara said, "Demi's actually pretty frigging cool... and she's bitched about him for nearly every session I've had since the tree got poisoned."

"She's the one doing the complaining?"

"I told her what had happened, and what had been happening ever since," Solara glanced over at him and smiled, "She's really not impressed with the way he's been acting ever since."

"No one is," Triton muttered, "But that's good... She's not taking his side... Actually, is she even taking any sides?"

"Nope." Solara shrugged and grinned at him when he shot her a confused look. "She told me that when she left camp behind, she left the politics behind as well. She'll treat and help anyone who's sent to her from camp, but she left it all behind, and she has no desire to ever get involved in it all again."

"That makes a lot of sense," Triton said.

Solara laughed. She actually kind of supported that decision, and she'd probably do the same one day when she finally got past the war. It would take an awful lot for her to ever get involved again, and even though Demi's situation was different, she knew that the woman had endured enough during her stay at camp.

"This life is hard," she said a minute later, "And most of us are just too happy to survive to adulthood to ever want to go back to the constant danger. I wish I had been given the opportunity."

Triton said nothing to that, and she hadn't really expected him to.

Her appointment went as well as it usually did, and Triton was waiting for her in her car afterwards. He handed over the second iced coffee that he had been holding, and she took it with a smile. She noticed that both cups had his name on them and tried not to laugh.

"I decided that I only needed the one," he said with a smirk.

"I see," she said, and took a long drink before she started her car.

They talked about lighter topics on her way back. She hated going back to camp now that Tantalus was in charge, and every time she left, she was cursed with the fact that she had to go back eventually. Triton noticed her mood and did his best to distract her, but he wasn't entirely successful. She did manage a laugh or two before he disappeared, but once he left she had to swallow her tears. She had always hated being alone, and because of all the restraints, every single time Triton had to leave her alone, she felt abandoned. She knew that that wasn't what he was doing, and the little contact she did have with him was better than none, but she wished that she didn't have to feel this way all of the time.

Once back at camp properly she parked her car and got out with a sigh. She shoved her keys into a pocket and meandered her way to the Big House. She had always told Dionysus and Chiron when she was back, and when her restrictions had been put into place, it was pretty much assumed that she was to report when she came back.

She walked inside, and peeked into the living room to see Dionysus, Tantalus, Percy, Annabeth, and Tyson. She tried to creep backwards, but Dionysus had already seen her.

"In here, jumper," he said glaring at her.

Solara grimaced, but came into the living room anyway. She sat on the arm of the couch that Percy, Annabeth, and Tyson were sitting on, and while it was coincidence she she was next to Annabeth, she was kind of happy. Annabeth was usually the one you wanted to be next to when receiving bad, or irritating, news. She was less prone towards emotional violence.

"The four of you have kitchen duty for the next week," Tantalus said with what Solara would describe as an evil grin.

"Why?" she asked calmly. She hoped that Percy would keep his mouth shut and let her and Annabeth handle this, but she also knew Percy, and doubted that that would happen.

"Because of the attack," Dionysus said in a bored tone.

"What attack?" she asked, she was going to drag this out as long as possible. If only so that Dionysus knew that she was far from impressed with his shit.

Annabeth quietly explained what had happened during the race.

"I see," Solara said when she was done, then turned her attention to the two camp heads. "I wasn't even there. So why am I being punished for an event I wasn't even present for?" She wisely kept her mouth shut in pointing out that she was technically already on kitchen duty.

"Because you weren't there," Tantalus said, "If you were any kind of real hero, then you would not have to be absent so much. Therefore you would have been here to help like the rest of your family."

Solara ground her teeth at his not so subtle jab at her mental health. She also saw the other four in the room glaring at him. (Though she wondered how much Tyson actually understood.)

"You four will do as you are told," Dionysus snapped as he stood, "And you will refrain form anymore questions."

"Okay," Annabeth said quickly.

Solara nodded, and she saw Annabeth nudge Percy so that he'd agree too. She let out a slow breath of relief when he did. They all filed out of the Big House a minute later when they had been dismissed to go clean up before lunch.

"If he wasn't already dead," Solara snarled when they were far enough away from the Big House. She threw a glare over her shoulder, but didn't bother to stop or fully turn around. "I'm actually being driven toward homicide... I don't think I've been pissed off enough to actually want to murder someone in a long time." She shook her head and sped away from the other before they could ask her to explain anything.

She stayed in cabin three for as long as she could. She had put her earbuds in and had turned the volume up as loud as she could handle. She also drew crappy comic strips of Tantalus dying in various painful ways. Her anger hadn't really burned out much by the time they had to report to the kitchens, but she just swallowed her rage. Tyson, Percy, and Annabeth hadn't done anything to deserve her anger, and she just tried to do her work in silence.

Afterward she ate her her dinner, having skipped lunch earlier, in silence as well, and went back to the cabin so that she didn't have to deal with Tantalus anymore. She also didn't want to deal with the whole 'we need a quest' thing. It might be true, but in her current mindset, she'd just get into more trouble than she already was. Angry Solara wasn't very good at controlling her brain-to-mouth filter, and she wasn't in the mood to deal with the angry senior counselors after she taught the younger campers some inventive insults. They'd probably be in multiple languages as well.

She pretended to be asleep when Percy and Tyson came back from the campfire. As awkward as she felt overhearing their conversation, she would have felt even more useless and awkward if they had known that she was awake. She waited impatiently on Percy to give up on sleep so that they could go to the beach.

Sighing with relief, Solara rolled out of bed and pulled her shoes on when she heard Percy start to move around. She just shrugged at him when he stared at her. She watched him pull on some normal clothes and snag the six pack of coke that he had acquired a couple of days ago. She'd already grabbed the blanket off of her bed, and since she really didn't care for coke, she had grabbed two of her vanilla pepsis as well.

They left the cabin in silence and made their way down to the beach. Solara was wondering why she was going with him, but she tried to fool herself by saying that she wanted to witness the conversation between Percy and Hermes. She wanted to go with Percy to the Sea of Monsters this time, but she doubted that Hermes would let her go.

"So," Percy said in a fake casual voice once they were sitting down next to the water. "How much did you hear earlier?"

"All of it," she said, and took a drink of her soda, "But let me ask you something before you get all pissed at me... Is it better that I pretended to be asleep, or that I was awake, and you knew that, and I either had to sit awkwardly in the corner, or participate?" She gave him a bored look. "There is no way me being involved in that at all would turn out good, and you know it."

"Point," Percy admitted, but he sounded far from happy about it.

"Sorry," Solara said, "I just did what I thought was best."

Percy actually seemed to consider that before he responded. "I guess I can see where you're coming from," he finally said, "I don't really agree, but I understand."

Solara can't help but to laugh softly at that. "Oh kid," she said between her giggles, "You are going to be miles ahead of everyone in the end." She threw him a smile and laid back so that she could look at the stars easier. "A lot of times you have to do what you just said. You don't have to agree with a person or a choice, you should just understand and accept that that's the way things are going to be." She grinned and shrugged at him when he shot her a look.

They said nothing again until Hermes arrived.

Solara saw Hermes appear out of the corner of her eye and smiled up at him when Percy choked at the sound of his voice. She also had to bite her lip so that she wouldn't laugh during his phone conversation.

"Eris is in customer service?" she asked, "No frigging wonder customer service calls suck." She snorted and sat up, it was too weird for her to be laying down with Percy and Hermes sitting up on either side of her.

She decided to stay quiet while Hermes spoke with Percy. A part of her might want to go on the quest, but it was more important that Percy went. She winced when Percy identified Hermes as 'Luke's father'. It wasn't that it had come out insulting, or even accusing, but it was awkward as shit. She took advantage of George, Martha, and Hermes's bickering to erase the awkwardness of Percy's statement by snorting into her soda.

"Will it stop you, Solara?" Her mes asked her bringing her out of her wandering thoughts.

"I want to," she admitted, "But... I'm not sure that I'm supposed to."

Hermes sighed and shook his head. "Do you know what the literal definition of 'insanity' is?" he asked.

Solara blinked and opened her mouth to ask what that had to do with going on the quest. She then thought about the question. "Oh, fuck me," she muttered, and resisted the urge to hit herself in the head. She shook her head instead. "Message received," she said sarcastically looking back up at the god who was watching her. "Also, I'm an idiot for not putting that together before."

It wasn't just Luke that she had been making a mistake with. She frowned in irritation at the thought that she actually could do something other than watch. She couldn't just tell others, because they wouldn't be able to think of possible repercussions, but she could, so it was up to her to try and make some changes. Now that thought was terrifying.

"Hindsight darling," he said before turning back to Percy.

Solara sat back and just watched and listened in silence as Hermes gave Percy the gifts that were going to help them on their new quest. She knew that he was going to ask them to do something in return for helping them leave. She knew what he was going to ask Percy, but she had no idea what he wanted from her.

She blinked down at her bag. The one that she took pretty much everywhere with her. She idly wondered how he knew it was waterproof, and pretty much quest ready, but decided that it really didn't matter.

Hermes went to leave, but when his eyes landed on her, he paused. He motioned for her to follow him a short ways away, and she followed without question. When he felt that they were far enough away he stopped and turned back towards her. "You said before that you helped him work through the anger he has for me, and that you got him to forgive me before he died."

Solara sighed and glanced over her shoulder to see that Annabeth and Tyson had already arrived. "I did," she said as she turned back towards Hermes, "But that was before I fucked up our relationship like I did this time."

"He forgave you," Hermes pointed out.

"But we aren't even friends this time," she argued, "He forgave me because he felt sorry for me... Because I was a hot mess when I came back into his life again."

"Try," he said, "Try to get through to him again."

"It's too late to stop this war from happening," she said, "You know that, right?"

"I do," Hermes said, "But it isn't too late to try to reach out to my son. To let him know that I have always cared, and that I always will." He pulled out a letter from thin air and handed it over to her. "You know Luke better than he knows himself," he said when she took the letter, "I know that I have no choice but to trust you with this, but please, help my son."

Solara slipped the letter into her bag. She looked up at Hermes, and then spoke very calmly but seriously. "I will. I swear upon the River Styx to do everything I can to help you and your son. I swear I will give him that letter when I feel that he will be the most receptive to reading what you have to tell him."

Thunder rumbled overhead sealing her oath.

Hermes looked shocked that she had gone that far. "Thank you," he said.

Solara smiled up at him sadly. "I love him too," she said.

She had just turned away to go back over to Percy when Hermes pulled her back. She made a noise of startled surprise when his lips landed on hers. Unable to resist, she melted into the kiss. It might only be a 'thank you' kiss, but gods were ridiculously good kissers, and Solara's brain was pretty fried by the time he pulled away.

She somehow made it over to the others by the time the hippocampi got there to take them to the ship. She didn't realize that she kept touching her lips, or smiling like a lovesick idiot until Percy said something. She blushed and glared at him. "It isn't like he gave me much time to stop him," she grumbled, "Besides, immortals are insanely good kissers."

That shut Percy up, and Solara was just happy that Tyson and Annabeth kept their thoughts to themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, he kissed her, but I'm sorry to say that it didn't really mean much to either one of them. Their romance is going to be a slow burn type of romance. Sorry for the long wait that you're in for.
> 
> The chapter title comes from the song 'Ready or Not' by Britt Nicole ft. Lecrae.
> 
> Please leave a friendly comment before you go! They feed the muse. :)


	9. don't talk to me like I don't know what you're feeling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a job! I may or may not have to go down to posting every other week, we shall see. I promise to tell you guys before I do that though.

Getting to the Princess Andromeda was the easy part. Solara was quickly forgetting her kiss with Hermes due to the adrenaline rush that escaping the harpies had caused. Then the fear of being so damn close to Kronos's sarcophagus was proving to cause a bigger spike of adrenaline to enter her system. She was not ashamed to say that climbing up the side of the ship scared her enough to make her hands and knees tremble.

She followed behind the other three. Her reflexes were the best when it came to being snuck up on from behind, and she honestly wanted an excuse to not have to participate in any conversation that came up. The eerie silence of the ship was getting to her, and she had begun to glance behind her every time they had to turn, or even just passed, a corner.

When they finally reached the open suite, Solara knew than that their presence on board had been noticed. She paused before entering the room, and looked behind her again down the hallway.

Luke was watching her. He smirked at her before disappearing down a hallway that intersected with hers.

Trying to keep her emotions, and facial expressions, in check, she entered the suite. Only Annabeth noticed her closing and locking the door behind her. Not that it would do any good. Though she doubted that Luke would drag them out of their beds in the middle of the night. He wanted them to get the fleece for him after all.

Sleep barely visited her that night. After roughly three hours she woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. Solara was unwilling to get up though, so she laid in the bed that she and Annabeth had decided to share, and she stared blankly up at the ceiling. Not that there was really anything else she could do.

"Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result," she whispered to herself, "I'm an idiot for not seeing that sooner." Even she knew that Hermes had a point about she'd been going about doing things. She had wasted so many years trying to save and help the wrong person. She hoped that it wasn't too late to try and fix her mistakes.

Annabeth woke up just before a happy sounding Australian man came over the intercom. They looked at each other when the last activity was announced. They shared disbelieving looks before rolling out of bed.

Solara watched as Annabeth stuck her head in the other room to talk to Percy. She had only heard stories about this little adventure, but she was sure that this was not going to end well. Knowing that this might be the last chance she got for awhile, she went into the bathroom to clean up and change clothes.

After everyone was done they left the suite and began to walk the ship again. Solara noticed the Mist-trance that all of the mortals were in before the others. She really tried not to think about what would happen to these poor souls once their purpose was done.

"That's so gross," she muttered when she caught sight of the Hellhound eating the scrambled eggs. She also had to agree with Tyson, she really wasn't hungry anymore.

The next thing she knew, they were all hiding in a bathroom so that they wouldn't get caught. Solara ignored both conversations and listened for Luke's voice, she knew that they'd have to deal with him before they could leave. Hell, she doubted that he'd allow them to leave without some kind of confrontation.

She scoffed when Annabeth said that they might be able to drag Luke to Olympus. "Don't hold your breath," she said as they left the bathroom, "I think we all know that it isn't going to be that easy."

Percy looked like he agreed with her, but he wisely didn't say anything.

Solara accompanied them back to the suite so that they could gather their things. She was already carrying her bag due to her habit, and desire to not want to lose anything when she jumped. So she was the one standing nervously by the door hoping that there weren't any monsters tailing them yet. She breathed a sigh of relief when they were ready to go, and tried not to roll her eyes at the argument of whether or not Tyson should carry their bags. They really didn't have time for it, but she wasn't even going to touch Annabeth's issues with cyclopes. Her argument was that it wasn't her business, and let them waste time she'd rather spend trying to track down Luke.

Finally they were creeping through the ship again, and were on their way to the admiralty suite. (And that damned casket that she still had nightmares about.) They had just made it to the floor that the suite was on when they had to duck into a supply closet to hide. Solara twitched violently when she heard Chris's voice. She had been semi-close with him once upon a time, but she had never really found out why he had joined the Titans. He was usually so sweet too.

"That was Chris Rodriguez," Annabeth said, and Solara gave her a sad look.

"What's another demigod doing here?" Percy asked.

"I get the feeling that we're about to find out," Solara muttered, and was the first to exit the supply closet. She led the way down the corridor, and she refused to go look out the window to watch the unknown demigod disembowel the dummy that was dressed up like a camper from Camp Half-Blood. She already had enough guilt to deal with, she didn't need to watch someone do something that she had done in the past.

They moved on, but before they even opened the door to the admiralty suite, Tyson stopped them. He mimicked the voices on the other side of the door, and even though it was creepy as fuck, Solara also thought that it was pretty damn useful. She rolled her eyes when Percy said 'run' when they realized that they had been caught. There was nowhere to run to anyway.

Not even bothering to try and fight her way out, or attempt to run, she stood calmly as the doors opened and weapons were leveled at them. She really tried to suppress the urge to roll her eyes at Luke's casual 'villain routine', but she failed. She couldn't help it though, it was like watching a really over-exaggerated movie villain make his 'I'm better than you, and you can't stop me, and I'm going to tell you exactly why' speech, and Luke, while charming, wasn't very good at convincing people that he was sane... or that Kronos was either.

Solara almost wondered why so many demigods joined them, but then she remembered the reason. Anger, plain and simple, and such a destructive force. No freaking wonder the war was always so damn close to evenly matched.

"And why are you here, Solara?" Luke asked her after he irritated the hell out of Percy and Annabeth.

"To tell you the truth," she said meeting his gaze calmly, "Though I get the feeling that you aren't quite ready to hear it yet."

"And what, jumper, do you think is the truth?" he asked, and there was that spark of rage in his eyes.

"Oh," she sighed, "I'm going to assume that he told you then?" She jerked her head towards the sarcophagus in reference to Kronos. "Tell me then," she said, and stepped forwards and sat down on the couch across from him. She ignored the other three shifting nervously behind her, she needed to know what Kronos had said. "What exactly did he say about me? And did he tell you what he did to me last summer?"

Luke frowned, that would be a 'no' to the second question then. "You're from another universe," he said, but paused and glanced at Percy, Tyson, and Annabeth.

"Oh, they already know," she said, waving a hand as if she were able to physically wave away his concern. Solara prayed that the others played along, she needed to know.

Luke snapped his gaze back to her. "You know the outcome of the war," he said glaring at her, "But you refuse to help either side, and you keep everything to yourself... They only act like they care." And there was the pitch.

"Oh fucking fuck," she muttered and shook her head, "You're right," she said, "Most of them only give a damn about me because of what I know, but not all, and I can tell you now that Kronos couldn't fucking care less if I lived or died." She sighed, "But that isn't what I really came here to say."

"Then what is it?"

"I want you to think about the love a parent usually has for their child," Solara said, "Most decent parents love their children, and their first thought about being a parent is usually, 'what if I mess up, and what if I hurt my child'." She shook her head sharply when he looked like he was going to interrupt. "We think that we'll never be good enough, and that every past mistake makes us unworthy of having them. That this world is going to take this innocent soul and punish it for our past mistakes... But for demigods, that is the truth of the world, we pay for our parent's fuck-ups, and they can't do anything except watch from a distance. Not allowed to help, and not even allowed to take their children to the side and tell them that they love them." Solara sighed again, and she went to speak some more, but Luke interrupted.

"'We think we aren't good enough'." He gave her a suspicious look. "You feel like explaining that?"

"Mm, I have a very unique connection to the gods," Solara said, "The ones with demigod children at least, and the ones that actually give a damn about them." The last bit had been added on at the last second, and no one missed that fact. "I had a child," she said, "And since you already know about the jumping, then I bet you can guess what happened to make me understand the gods in a way that not many demigods ever will."

"What's your point?" Luke asked after a moment of silence.

"Your father cares," she said, "He loves you, and he will always love you... And at any time you want to, he'll welcome you back, because all of this?" she waved her hand around gesturing to their company and surroundings, "It doesn't change a thing for him, and there is nothing you can do to change his mind."

Luke's face grew steadily redder throughout her speech. "You know nothing," he hissed.

Solara shrugged and stood up and joined the other three again. "If that is what you choose to think," she said, "Then I won't stop you." She couldn't have stopped him, even if she wanted to, but she hoped that what she said would stick in his mind.

The next thing she knew Tyson was attacking Luke, and Luke was then ordering for them to be fed to the drakon. Luke kept one of the bear twins with him though, and Solara was pretty sure that she was the only one to know how deliberate that was. There was no way he actually expected them to become dinner with only two brainwashed mortals, and the dumb bear twin to escort them down.

Percy turned to Tyson and said 'now' when they were out next to the lifeboats. A part of Solara was proud of them for not needing much more than that, but then she and Annabeth were too busy knocking out the mortal guards to say something. Unfortunately one of the guards was able to pull the alarm before they went down.

Solara ran to the lifeboats before Percy even yelled for them to get to one. Was joined first by Tyson, and they had gotten the lifeboat over the water and had jumped in by the time Annabeth had jumped in next to them. Solara pulled out her knife, and when Percy joined them in the boat, she and he slashed the ropes in unison. Then they were free-falling towards the water.

"Thermos!" Percy shouted.

"What?" Annabeth screamed, and Solara wondered how long it was going to take her to trust Percy's insane plans.

For her part, Solara had left her voice and stomach on the deck of the ship dozens of feet above them. She watched as Tyson gave Percy the thermos, and she tightened her grip on the lifeboat knowing what he was planning. A wave of nausea hit her when their decent became faster and at an angle.

She groaned and nearly lost her grip when they hit the water. The only thing she was happy about was the fact that they weren't falling anymore. They were bouncing instead. They bounced a few times before they were speeding across the water in a relatively smooth motion. Solara groaned again and released her death grip on the boat and curled up in the bottom of the boat. She ignored the others as they made an IM to Chiron, but when it cut off she knew that the others had questions that she had no way of avoiding.

So she sat up and looked the others in the eye. "Ask away," she said.

"Are you actually going to answer?" Percy asked in disbelief.

"Do I really have a choice?" she shot back and arched an eyebrow.

"'Jumper'," Percy said quickly, like he was afraid that she was going to change her mind. Or disappear before he could ask. "Both Mr. D and Luke called you that. What does it mean?"

"You go straight for the hard questions," Solara sighed, and then launched into an explanation. "It is what it sounds like.," she said, "I'm a jumper... I jump universes, and I'm supposed to do some super secret important thing, but I don't even know what said thing is." She shrugged at his disbelieving look. "Seriously, I have a name, but I have no idea what I'm supposed to do for them."

"That's why you act like you know the future," Annabeth said with a gasp, "You've lived this all before."

"I know some things," she said cautiously, "But I don't know everything."

"You knew about my mother," Percy said.

"One of the few details," Solara agreed, "But I really don't know everything."

Percy frowned. "You said that you had a kid."

"That's not a question," Solara said.

"You're only eighteen," Percy said, "You can't have a kid."

"Uh, actually, biology says that I can... Anyway, I'm seventeen," Solara corrected, "But, Percy, I've been seventeen for nearly a century now, and while I don't age, I can still get pregnant."

"What happened?" Annabeth asked.

Solara flinched at the question. "I jumped again," she said flatly, "That's what happened."

Percy, Annabeth, and Tyson all flinched at her tone. It was dead and lifeless, and Solara knew that Annabeth hadn't meant any harm by the question, but it still hurt to think about her daughter. "Lord Hermes had promised to look after her," she said softly and looked away from them, "He wasn't her father, but promised to find her a good home, and if he couldn't then he'd do what he could until it was time for her to go to camp... I know he did as he said," she whispered the last bit to herself. She had to believe that, because the alternative was to go insane with worry and grief.

"You don't even know if she's alive," Percy gasped.

Solara flinched again, but she refused to respond. If they wanted more answers, then they'd have to wait again, because thinking about her daughter was just too painful at the moment. Gods, why had she brought her up?

Oh right, to get Luke to listen to her. To make him understand that she wasn't just blindly repeating his fathers words to him. To get him to see that she actually meant the words she said to him.

Because only parents would be able to say what she said, and say it with the emotion that she had said it. No one would be able to fake it, and have it still have the impact that the words were meant to have.

*~S~*

A little over an hour latter Solara was awkwardly checking out a quiver of arrows that had been stored at the safe-house that Annabeth had led them to. She didn't really want to have to listen to Percy and Annabeth talk about Luke and Thalia, but she had also wanted to make sure that the arrows were in good condition before she tried to use them.

"Luke let us go too easily," Percy said.

"Yup," Solara muttered, but she didn't look away from the arrows.

"I know," Annabeth sighed, "I was thinking the same thing. What we overheard him say about a gamble, and 'they'll take the bait'... I think he was talking about us."

"About the fleece?" Percy asked, "Or Grover?"

"The fleece," Solara cut in, "He wants all of us to do the hard work, and then steal it from us on our way back to camp."

Annabeth looked at her sharply. "How do you figure that?" she asked.

"Do you really think that our boarding his ship really went unnoticed?" Solara asked, "Because, no, he noticed, he saw us, and he was planning on letting us go from the start... Or did no one wonder why he sent the mentally deficient twin to watch us become dinner?"

They both pondered that for a second. "She's right," they then both said, making Solara giggle at their shocked faces.

"I just can't believe that he'd poison Thalia's tree," Annabeth said, causing the serious mood to come crashing back in.

"What did he mean, that Thalia would have been on his side?" Percy asked.

"He's wrong," Annabeth said, but she hesitated slightly before answering.

Percy looked to Solara, but she just shrugged. Throughout all of her jumps she had never been that close to Thalia. This go around had been the closest they had ever been, and it was a total of five minutes before Thalia had been turned into a tree. Not the best basis for Solara to try and judge for something like Percy was asking about.

"You don't sound sure," Percy said after a moment.

Annabeth glared up at Percy. "Do you know who you remind me of most?" she asked, "Thalia. You guys are so alike it's scary. I mean you would have been best friends, or you would have strangled each other."

"Let's go with 'best friends'," Percy said, and he sounded slightly nervous to Solara.

She hid a smile at that, and listened quietly as Annabeth described Thalia, and she had to admit that Thalia did sound a lot like Percy in personality. She smiled at Percy when he said that just being angry at his dad wouldn't be enough for him to turn against the gods. She really wished that she could have been more like him in the past.

Having tuned out of the conversation, Solara was surprised when Tyson came back with donuts. She sighed and put the quiver on her back, and then shrugged her bag on over it. She had a vague memory of them saying that they fought a hydra before getting on Clarisse's boat.

"Let's go check it out," she said snapping Percy and Annabeth out of their shocked states. "I'd suggest not leaving anything behind too... I don't think that we're going to be staying here much longer."

Annabeth was reluctant to take their bags with them, but Percy argued that Solara might be right about them not coming back. In the end they decided to only grab the bag that had the thermos and the bottle of multivitamins from Hermes, if only because those were the things that everyone agreed that they couldn't lose. Tyson was the one who carried the bag as he led them to the top of the hill.

"This is not good," Annabeth said once they reached the top and were hiding behind some bushes.

"Agreed," Solara muttered.

"It's just a donut shop," Percy said giving them weird looks.

"I wish that were true," Solara said, "But no. Shops like this one." She gestured to the building in front of them. "Are not your average chain-store."

"Because it has 'monster' in the name?" Percy asked, "Guys, Tyson went in just fine –"

"Tyson is technically classified as a monster though," Solara pointed out gently, "He'd be fine going in, but a demigod? Forget it."

"She's right," Annabeth said, "Places like these... A child of Hermes figured it out years ago, they're like nests for –"

"Shut up," Solara hissed catching sight of the hydra just seconds before Annabeth.

"No. Sudden. Moves."

Percy and Tyson slowly turned to see what had caused Solara and Annabeth to freeze up like they had. Both froze at the sight of the seven headed beast. None of them said a words as they watched the hydra walk along slowly. Percy and Annabeth gave her appraising looks when they noticed that the hydra was tearing apart one of their bags from the safe-house. She just shrugged at them and kept her eyes on the hydra.

"Please keep going," Solara prayed, she had no desire to fight a monster that could spit acid at them.

Tyson whimpered and took a step back when it seemed like one of the heads was looking in their direction. Unfortunately he stepped on a twig, and all of the hydra's heads swiveled in their direction and focused in on them.

"Shite." Solara dove to one side as Annabeth yelled 'scatter' and had leaped to another.

Percy and Tyson had to duck the spray of acid.

With no fire, and with no way to quickly make any, the fight became a blur of dodging and yelling to Solara. She wanted to yell at Percy for cutting off one of the heads, but Annabeth was already doing that, so she decided to conserve her energy instead. She actually sighed in relief when she heard Clarisse's boat coming closer. She knew that Clarisse didn't like them a whole lot, but she'd save them if only to hold it over their heads for the next decade.

"Duck!" Solara yelled seconds after she heard 'fire at will', and she threw herself to the ground hoping for the best.

The hydra exploded, showering them with dirt and monster guts.

"You couldn't just disintegrate like normal?" Solara muttered angrily, and she tried to get the bits out of her hair at the very least.

*~S~*

Solara decided that being on a Civil War boat might have been cool, if it hadn't come with the dead soldiers. Seriously, they were creepy, and not to mention judgmental as hell. They liked Annabeth and her because of where they were from, but hated Percy because he was from New York. Solara was kind of glad that she told them that she was from Georgia instead of where she had actually been born. Not that she remembered it really, she just knew that it was in the north somewhere. She was actually kind of sad that she couldn't remember anymore, but a ghost ship was not the place to be thinking about such things.

"Mr. D banned you three for life," Clarisse said, gesturing to Percy, Tyson, and Annabeth, "He said that if you showed up again he'd turn you into squirrels and run you over."

"I'm going to assume that I still don't exist to him?" Solara asked lightly, and tossed a potato chip into her mouth.

"Yeah," Clarisse sighed, "He refused to even let Tantalus mention your name... I have to ask why he hates you so much."

"I'm not sure he does," Solara muttered, "But hey... I'll take it over getting turned into a squirrel." She ignored the odd looks that the others gave her, and focused on her food. Which was a little hard because Annabeth was on her lap due to a lack of seats.

Eventually they were led down to the crew's quarters and were given hammocks to sleep in. Solara hadn't even realized how tired she was until she laid down and went to sleep.

*~S~*

"Oh, great," she muttered, "I'm back in hell."

"Not quite," a voice said from behind her.

"Ask me if I care," Solara snapped, and turned around to glare at the person who had called her to Tartarus again. "I'm not going to help you," she said, "So why have you dragged me from my sleep this time?"

Kronos just smiled at her. "I know that they'd figure out a way to help you," he said, his tone very conversational like, "They need you just as much as I want you."

Solara cringed when her brain gave his words a double meaning. "As I've said before," she snarled to cover her flinch, "That's never going to happen."

the Lord of Time just shrugged. "You say that now, but you've already caused the future to become blurred... You may still choose me."

"Gross," Solara muttered, her brain still stuck on double meanings, "I fucking hate you," she said, "Why would I choose you? You honestly can't expect me to believe anything you say, and it's not like you have anything to offer me in the first place."

"Are you sure about that?"

Solara froze. This wasn't going like it usually did, and she wasn't sure what Kronos had been smoking for the past year, but he was way too calm for her liking. She'd rather if he made her remember the void again, because then at least he'd be acting more like himself. She shook her head and glared at him. "Yes," she said, "I'm very sure that there is nothing you could offer me... And no reason for me to believe that you'd actually follow through on your end."

"Not even getting Alice back to you?"

Solara let out a shaky breath at her daughter's name. 'He can't,' she told herself, 'He can't, and even if he could, what would stop him from killing you both a second later?"

"Go fuck yourself," she snarled.

*~S~*

Solara woke up with a gasp. Her heart was beating wildly with a mixture of rage and grief, and she knew that she needed to get out of the crowded room before she lost it completely. She put the quiver of arrows and her bag back on her back, and then made her way quickly to the deck of the boat. The un-dead soldiers ignored her as she drifted over to one side of the deck to stare down at the water.

Gods, why was Kronos so adamant about getting her to join his side? She had thought that after their conversation last year, he had been done with her. Though it was possible that she had read more into the forced insanity than what he had meant.

"What a narcissistic whack-job," she muttered rubbing at her forehead, "I wish he'd leave me alone already."

for the next couple of hours she stood on the deck. There really wasn't much else for her to do, so she tried to pick apart her little 'Kronos problem' as she had begun to call it. He had become obsessed with getting her on his side, and she thought that maybe it had something to do with her being a jumper, but after this last little 'chat' she was beginning to rethink that. Kronos was a narcissistic little shit, but he didn't usually keep going after something when rejected multiple times.

"Just Rhea," she muttered, "She rejected him every time, but he kept chasing her." Solara shuddered at the thought of her being Rhea's replacement. "Why is it always me?" she asked, but considering that no one was around, she got no answer.

Finally Solara heard the sounds of Charybdis, and she knew that this little adventure was halfway over. She stayed where she was and was joined by Annabeth and Tyson, then a few minutes later Percy showed up as well. Unable to completely ignore the impending doom, Solara closed her eyes and began to pray to Poseidon, Amphitrite, and Triton. She really hoped that one of them would help, because she had no desire to die at the, metaphorical, hands of Scylla, or Charybdis. She was also regretting going on this insane quest.

The sound of the cannons firing snapped her back to reality. Her prayers had gone unanswered, and now they were on their own. She traded looks with Percy and Annabeth, Tyson was gone so she assumed that he had gone below to fix the engine. The three of them watched as un-dead confederates rushed to reload the cannons, but they all knew that it wouldn't be enough to save them.

"Well, it's been nice knowing you guys," Solara shouted, and gave Percy, Annabeth, and Clarisse a sarcastic grin.

Percy snorted and shook his head, but Clarisse and Annabeth glared at her. Obviously only Percy was able to laugh in the face of certain death like she could. Maybe that was why they seemed to be getting along better recently. Solara filed it under 'things to think about later'.

Then the sucking stopped, the boat moved away steadily, and despite the steady hum of the engine, everything was eerily silent. Charybdis then spat out all of the water that she had just sucked in. A forty foot wave slammed into the boat, along with one of the cannons that they had fired at Charybdis, and Solara didn't need Percy of the captain to say that they needed to abandon the ship.

Solara jerked back in surprise when Scylla plucked up the captain. She was pretty sure that if she had blinked, she would have missed it. Not that her eyes could really see what was happening. Mortal brains just couldn't process the information fast enough.

She and Annabeth went over to the other lifeboat. They needed to get out of there fast, and Solara knew that things were about to get very messy. They had gotten the boat uncovered and into the water by the time that Percy had been snatched up by Scylla as well.

"Percy!" Solara yelled causing Annabeth to look up as well.

Percy was falling from the air, and even though landing in the water from the height he was at wouldn't kill him, or even hurt him, Solara doubted that it was fun. Both lifeboats had gotten away from the ship a bit, but both she and Annabeth ducked reflexively when it exploded. Solara tried to remind herself that Tyson would be okay, but faced with that explosion, even she doubted that fact.

"We need to move faster," Solara said to Annabeth even as she was opening the thermos. Too late Solara realized that Annabeth had jerked her hand too far too fast. "No!" she shouted, but the wind had already been released from the thermos.

The force of the second explosion caused Annabeth to be thrown back into Solara. They, thankfully, hadn't been knocked out of the boat, but the boat had been propelled right past Scylla and Charybdis. Even though they were theoretically out of the danger zone, they still had to deal with a lot of the flaming wreckage.

Solara pushed Annabeth off of her with a groan once the boat had stopped spinning wildly. She hated roller coasters as a general rule, but after that she felt that she'd be able to go on any of them, and it wouldn't compare in the slightest. She let her bag slide off of her shoulders, and set it down in the bottom of the boat next to the now empty thermos. Next she took off her quiver and set it down next to her bag.

"Stay with the boat," she told Annabeth, "Maybe pull some of the more useful things from the water... I'll get Percy."

Annabeth nodded, and then Solara dove into the water. Sure Percy couldn't drown, but the farther he sank, the harder it would be to pull him back up. Never before had Solara had to pull someone from the water, and she was actually kind of happy that she had joined various swim teams in the past. She knew that she was strong enough to get him to the boat, but having to 'rescue' him in the first place was making her twitchy.

Finally she caught sight of Percy and swam towards him. She had to dodge around a couple of pieces of the exploded ship, but she made it to Percy. Grabbing him around the middle she used a convenient chunk of debris to kick off of towards the surface. She was kind of envious of his ability to breathe underwater now. If only because it would have made the whole thing easier.

Solara gasped for breath when her head finally broke the surface. Really, she wanted to breathe underwater more than ever now... and he was dry. Now this was just ridiculous, he was going to be dry while she had to shiver for hours while she waited for her hair and clothes to dry off the usual way. This day was just getting better and better.

Annabeth met her halfway with the boat, and together they were able to get Percy into the boat without knocking his head against the side. She pulled herself in after. If this was normal for quests, then she was never going on another one ever again, because this just blew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this was fun. See you next week, same bat-time, same bat-channel! :)
> 
> The chapter title comes from the song 'Lost In the Moment' by NF ft. Jonathan Thulin.
> 
> Please leave a friendly comment on your way out! :)


	10. and it's like the fog has lifted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer - See chapter one. I don't own the songs Solara sings.  
> Notes - I'm so sorry that this is a day late. I was having an anxiety attack all morning yesterday, and by the time I got off of work, I had no desire to do anything except sleep.
> 
> Songs Solara sings:  
> It Ends Tonight by All American Rejects  
> Stars by Skillet  
> Coat of Arms by Jonathan Thulin  
> Graveyard by Jonathan Thulin

About ten minutes in Annabeth got tired of her bitching and told her to just take her clothes off so that she'd dry off faster. Solara just shrugged and did as suggested. She wasn't as cold as she thought she'd be, but wet jeans would always be uncomfortable, and wet skinny jeans were just double the amount of annoying. So she sat in the boat in her bra and panties and laid her wet clothes out as much as she could. She also tossed a clean shirt over Percy's face just in case he woke up before she got dressed again.

"So, why were you moved into cabin three?" Annabeth asked her.

Solara looked up from digging in her bag. "Percy didn't tell you?" she asked.

Annabeth shook her head. "And neither did any of the year-rounders, they all said that when Poseidon claimed you, you wouldn't tell them why."

"It wasn't their business," Solara said, "And I was actually kind of irritated with the way things had happened... Not that I wasn't grateful for getting out of cabin eleven, if only so that I could actually sleep in a bed again, but um... I have a soul-mate as it turns out." She shrugged at Annabeth and was about to go back to her bag when she spoke again.

"But that isn't –"

"Triton," Solara said, "Triton and I are platonic soul-mates, and because Apollo, daddy dearest, wouldn't claim me, Poseidon did."

"Why didn't you..." Annabeth trailed off and shook her head.

"It wasn't their business," Solara repeated, "I'm not ashamed, but can you imagine how everyone would treat me after they found out? They'd have acted like I was going to destroy everyone if they so much as looked at me weird." Solara shook her head. "I didn't want that, and if the price I paid for that was just a diluted form of that paranoia, then I'd happily deal with that."

Annabeth nodded slowly. "I can kind of understand that," she said.

Solara mentally scoffed at that. Annabeth might be able to imagine a situation like hers, but until you live it, your imagination just doesn't cut it. "Why ask me anyway?" she asked and pulled out a dry pair of skinny jeans from her bag.

"I was curious," Annabeth admitted with a shrug.

Solara snorted and then shimmied into her jeans. This was the last time she ever got dressed in a rowboat, it really was harder than what she was making it look. "Of course you were," she muttered and snatched the shirt off of Percy's face. She pulled the shirt over her head and glared at Annabeth. "It really isn't your business either, if I'm going to be honest here."

Annabeth sighed. "You really don't like it when people ask you semi-personal questions, do you?" she asked.

"Not really," Solara said, "But I'm a very paranoid person who's been stalked for the last three years in my sleep... Dammit, I wasn't actually going to go there." She shook her head to stop Annabeth from saying anything. "The titan Lord of Time," she said sarcastically, "He's become obsessed with getting me on his side... as if I were stupid enough to do that." she choked back the 'again' that should have been on the end of that sentence.

Annabeth nodded, but she didn't say anything, which Solara was happy about. She had kept all the secrets she did for so long, and now here she was telling a lot of people a lot of different things. Things that she had usually kept to herself.

If she jumped again, she wasn't sure that she'd handle it well.

"How many times have you done this?" Annabeth asked a few minutes later.

"This war?" Solara asked in an attempt to stall, "Or this... adventure?"

"This war."

"Oh," Solara nodded and tried to think of something that wasn't overly sarcastic to say. "This would be the fifth time." She looked away from Annabeth, she really hoped that she wouldn't continue down this line of questioning.

"Why do you..." Annabeth trailed off awkwardly.

"Jump?" Solara finished for her, "I honestly have no idea. I have a theory, but I don't actually know, and there isn't really anyone for me to ask."

"Keep trying," Annabeth said, "I was going to ask why you keep trying."

Solara's gaze snapped back to Annabeth. "Because I care," she said, "Because it's the right thing to do. Because if I don't, then I jump anyway. Because of the crushing sense of guilt I get when I try to walk away." She shrugged at Annabeth's shocked look. "Pick one, hell, pick all of them, but the end result doesn't change. I'm still here, I'm still fighting, and maybe I don't know how to do anything else, but I choose to stay... and I choose to keep trying, because as much as I might say that I want to walk away... I never can, and a part of me never wants to."

"Have you ever been able to change anything?" Annabeth asked.

"Some," Solara said, "But it ended in more deaths than there should have been,so I'm never doing that again."

Annabeth winced and nodded. "Fair," she said, "So you've always gone on this 'adventure' then?"

"Okay, so I'm attempting again," Solara admitted, "But last time..." She sighed and shook her head. "If I told you how I tried the first time, then you'd never trust me again... If you even trust me at all now."

"You loved him," Annabeth said, then she glanced over at Percy to make sure that he was still out. "Luke," she clarified, "You loved Luke, and you thought that you needed to help him –"

"And I was wrong," Solara cut in, "I thought that by staying with him, helping him, was the way that I could stop the jumping, but it didn't... and all I was left with was a mountain of guilt that turned into depression and PTSD." She sighed again. "I am going to say this once, and then I'm never going to say it again... I regret doing everything I did when I chose that side, because I turned myself into a monster when I did that, but I can't regret my reasons. I'll admit that not all of them were good, or even right, but I can't regret them." she shrugged at Annabeth's shocked look. "They call us 'heroes'," she said with a sarcastic smile, "But heroes don't truly exist... and maybe if they do, then I certainly wouldn't be one of them."

They both fell silent after that. Annabeth because she was busy thinking about everything that Solara had said, and Solara because she didn't want to have to talk about anything else. Confessing everything she had had made her twitchy. Triton had been one thing, because she had known that while he might have been disappointed in her past choices, he also had known that she wasn't going to make the same choices again. She hadn't had to worry about his reaction, because he'd never turn his back on her. She hoped that Annabeth continued to see that she was on the same side as her.

A little while later Percy woke up. He groaned as he tried to sit up so Solara pushed him back down.

"Rest," she said, "Your head was hit pretty hard."

"Tyson?" he asked, but he stayed down so Solara was happy about that.

Solara and Annabeth traded looks.

"I'm really sorry Percy," Annabeth said and shook her head. "He may have survived," she said after a few minutes, "Fire can't kill him."

"Solara?" Percy asked looking at her.

She sighed. "Anything is possible," she said not looking at either one of them. She knew that Tyson survived, but watching that boat explode had made her doubt what she knew. How could anyone or anything survive that?

Solara shook her head and shifted so that she was lying down. She knew that Percy and Annabeth would wake her up once they were close to Circe's island, so she wanted to sleep a bit. The other two seemed to know what she wanted to do, and neither seemed to want to talk anyway. She fell asleep pretty quickly, so at least she didn't have to deal with her thoughts going in circles for very long.

*~S~*

Solara woke a few hours later to Percy gently shaking her shoulder.

"There's an island up ahead," he said when she opened her eyes.

"Fantastic," she said and sat up with a groan, "I'd kill to get out of this boat, it's way too small for three people for longer than four hours."

Annabeth snorted. "You got that right," she muttered.

Solara smothered a laugh as they waited for the current to drag their boat into the harbor. She also put the now empty thermos into her bag along with the baggie of ambrosia. She thought about taking the bottle of multivitamins, but she figured that with Circe's magic, it would be better for them to be more accessible than what putting them in her bag would make them.

Finally the boat made it to the docks and they were able to get out of it. Solara sighed in relief when she was finally able to stand up and stretch her legs. She stood behind Percy and Annabeth as they talked to the young woman who had been waiting for them to get off of the boat.

"First time at spa," she said cheerfully as she wrote on her clipboard.

Solara tried to keep the disbelieving look off of her face, but when Annabeth's glance turned into a glare, she figured that she failed. Not that she cared all that much, the other two would figure out that they weren't staying soon enough. Gods, she hated quests, why was she here again?

Oh, right, to help.

Fat lot of help she'd been so far.

Solara sighed, squeezed her eyes shut, and pinched the bridge of her nose. She wasn't sure if those thoughts were hers, the magic that saturated the island they were on, or if they were because her mads were leaving her system. If there was only one important thing that Hermes had forgot to pack for her, then it just bloody well had to be her anti-depressants. Then again, it had looked like Hermes hadn't actually packed anything extra in her bag.

'Dammit,' she thought as she followed behind the others, 'That damn spell that Hecate put on my bag. I forgot the even a god couldn't get into my bag without my permission... and my pills were on the nightstand.' She shook her head slightly, so she couldn't blame anyone for not having her pills. That was fine, she didn't want to be pissed at Hermes anyway.

Solara blinked an shook her thoughts away when they finally got to where Circe was. She was having difficulty focusing on what was going on around her, and she hoped that she'd get to take another nap soon. She found herself leaning on Annabeth for support as they were being given a tour of the spa after Percy had been taken by Circe for 'personal help'.

Wasn't he going to get turned into a guinea pig? She couldn't remember.

The next thing she knew she was in a room with Annabeth and they were getting changed into sleeveless dresses. Annabeth's was white with gold embroidery, and hers was a dark green with more gold embroidery. Solara stuffed her clothes into her bag and gestured for Annabeth to do the same. She muttered that Hecate had made it for her during a previous jump and that it was bottomless when Annabeth hesitated.

Then they left the room and were pushed into chairs, and then were practically attacked with make-up and hair products. Annabeth looked vaguely uncomfortable, but Solara was digging her nails into her palms trying to keep calm. It hadn't felt like much time had passed, but she knew that time could pass differently in magic heavy, or monster infested areas. She wondered if that was the reason that the side effects of going off of her pills were hitting her faster than she thought that they should have.

"Are you okay?" Annabeth asked her quietly when they were on their way back to Circe and Percy.

"'Okay' is relative," Solara muttered, "And a useless term because it can mean different things to different people."

"Aren't you just a ray of sunshine."

"I haven't had my meds since we left camp," she muttered, "And the meds I'm on are not just ones that you can stop taking. They wean people off of meds for a reason."

"Why weren't they in your bag?" Annabeth asked.

"Because aside from being bottomless, my bag is spelled so that no one can get into it without my permission... Not even a god," she added when Annabeth looked ready to point out that Hermes wasn't exactly powerless. "He probably didn't know about the pills. I keep my bag travel ready, and I keep my pills in my nightstand drawer."

"What do you keep in your bag?" Annabeth asked changing the subject.

"Clothes, a toothbrush, toothpaste, some soap, tampons, ambrosia, an extra dagger, a few water bottles, and some food stuff." She grinned at Annabeth's shocked look. "A couple of oranges, maybe an apple or two if I know that I'm going to eat them soon, but mostly different types of granola and protein bars. Also some Fiber One cookies because I have a serious sweet tooth."

"Wow," Annabeth muttered looking slightly impressed, "You really embrace the boy scouts motto."

Solara rolled her eyes and snorted. "I needed to," she said, "But I was actually a girl scout if you must know... Girl scouts are cooler, and we have cookies."

"Delicious cookies," Annabeth agreed.

"They are, aren't they?" Solara smiled over at Annabeth.

Annabeth nodded seriously, but they fell silent after that.

A few more things were pointed out to them on their way, including the library, which impressed Solara as much as it impressed Annabeth. As cool as it was, she still wanted to get off of the island. So she dragged Annabeth out and reminded her that they needed to meet back up with Percy. Annabeth willingly followed her out after that.

"You turned my brother into a guinea pig?" Solara asked slightly annoyed once they made it back to the room that they had left Percy in with Circe. "Allow me to express my rage about that."

Circe gave her a patronizing smile. "You'll be happier without needing to worry about him," she said, "You both could stay here and learn sorcery."

"Magic's not really my thing," Solara muttered, "I can light things on fire, but that's about where my talents end."

Annabeth elbowed her sharply in the ribs. Solara took the hint and kept her mouth shut. Then Annabeth began to sweet talk Circe. She somehow got Circe to give them a minute alone with Percy to say goodbye. Circe locked them in the room with no way to escape, but she did leave them alone.

Solara flinched when the door slammed shut behind the sorceress, but she immediately began looking around Percy's clothes. She darted over to where she saw the edge of a pant leg sticking out from underneath the loom. She pulled out the bottle of multivitamins, and it took her the rest of the minute they had, but she got the cap off and poured some of them out into her hand. She handed one to Annabeth and had just put one into her mouth when the door opened again.

Solara let Annabeth confront Circe, and she stayed silent with both hands behind her back. She edged backwards towards the cage that had the guinea pigs in it, and prayed that no one asked her what she was doing. Thankfully they were busy staring at Annabeth who had her knife at Circe's throat. So when she turned suddenly and dumped her handful of vitamins into the cage, no one could stop her.

She quickly backed away knowing that the cage was going to explode.

"No!" Circe shrieked, "Those were the trouble ones... You have no idea what you just did!"

Solara ignored her and she pulled Annabeth up and over to the side. They watched the cage explode, and suddenly Percy was back to normal, along with several pirates. She blinked in surprise at the pirates, but they paid no attention to her. Other than answering Annabeth when she questioned who one of them was, they ignored them and went after Circe and her attendants.

"I was not expecting that," Solara muttered and walked back over to her bag. She had dropped it when she had grabbed the bottle of vitamins. "Either way though," she said and turned back around to look at Percy and Annabeth, "We should probably get out of here."

"Agreed," Percy said.

Annabeth pulled the rest of the gold from her hair and threw it to the ground. She nodded her agreement, and then they ran for it.

"What ship should we take?" Solara asked when they reached the docks.

"That one," Percy said, pointing to a large wooden ship with sails.

Solara shrugged and ran behind Percy and Annabeth. They were climbing up the side when the pirates caught sight of them. "Crap," she muttered, "Climb faster," she called up to the others. Another minute and they were standing on the deck staring at each other uselessly.

"Now what?" Solara and Annabeth asked at the same time.

"Mizzemast!" Percy said suddenly.

Solara and Annabeth traded looks. Solara had to admit that as much as she trusted Percy, she was wondering if this was a brief break from reality. Not that she blamed him, their lives were currently sucking. Then the ship responded, the rigging and sails were moving on their own. She looked back over at Percy mildly impressed.

"Okay, this is pretty cool," she told him with a grin.

"It really is," Annabeth added.

Percy grinned back at them, and the ship lurched away from the docks just as the pirates got there.

*~S~*

"One of the few to visit Tartarus, and escape with your life."

Solara sighed and sat down on a rock facing away from Kronos. "Yep," she said, "And you keep dragging me down here... Is it really any wonder that I hate you for that alone?"

He snorted and came over to sit down on a rock directly in front of her. "I don't care about your feelings," he sneered.

"I noticed," she muttered.

"Why were you down here?" he asked.

"Nope," she said, "If you want to know, then you'll need to go digging through my memories again... Except you can't, can you?" Solara smirked at him. "I figured that out by the way. You can only fuck around with my memories that have been blocked, and the others you can't mess with."

"A side-effect of you being a jumper," he said calmly, but she heard the edge of anger in his voice, "I assure you, were you normal, you would not stand a chance against me."

"Probably," Solara agreed, "But I'm still not telling you anything."

"Why were you down here?" he asked again.

"Because someone pushed me down a hole," she said sarcastically.

"Interesting," he muttered, "That was the truth."

Solara shrugged. "It's not information that you can use."

Kronos shook his head, or at least that was what it looked like to her. Shadows were hard to read. "Maybe," he said, "But I'm more interested in why you just told me."

"It was your son," Solara said, "In a universe where jumpers made him more paranoid that he usually is, and then I got stuck down here with you." She glared at him. "I'll admit, I'm only telling you this because you can't use it. Even if you tried to get someone to tell your kids about this, the only thing it would tell them, is exactly what not to do."

"You were on my side," Kronos said.

"I wasn't," she said, "I got out before this all started."

"You were," he insisted, "Maybe not for the reason that I would have liked, or even wanted, but you were on my side during your stay in that universe."

Solara glared at him. "Why are you doing this?" she asked, "I mean, you know that there is no way that I'd choose you."

she got the feeling that he was smirking at her. "But you did once."

*~S~*

Solara woke with a gasp.

It took a few minutes, but she eventually calmed down enough to look around. She was laying in a hammock in the crew's quarters. She glanced over to Annabeth laying in another hammock next to her. She groaned and rolled out of the hammock, and then she stumbled her way up to the deck.

"Hey," she muttered to Percy when she saw him, "Tell me something, how in the bloody hell did you get Voldemort to leave you alone?" She walked over to where he was at the helm, and leaned against the railing that was closest to him. "No, really," she said when he looked at her in confused surprise, "How do I get him to leave me alone already?"

"Kro –"

"No!" she said quickly, glaring at him, "Haven't you learned by now? Names have power, and if you say it here, then that only gives him more power."

"How?" he asked.

"This entire area is flooded with magic," she said, "The more magic in an area where names are invoked, them the more power behind the invoking." She shook her head in irritation, "And now I'm really pissed that you never saw the orientation film." She looked back over at him. "Now, Voldemort?"

"He left me alone," Percy said, "After trying to have me killed."

Solara frowned. "Damn," she muttered, "That doesn't help."

"Is he talking to you in your sleep?" Percy asked.

"Yep," she said with a sigh, "And he won't leave me alone. I thought he was going to after what he did to me last year." She shrugged and shook her head. "But nope... He's still trying to get me to tell him what's going to happen during this war."

"So there is going to be an actual war?" Percy asked.

"Of course there is," Solara scoffed, "Given the people involved, there was always going to be a war."

Percy nodded, but before he could say anything Annabeth came up on deck. Percy looked at her as if silently asking if she wanted to keep the conversation between them. She nodded and smiled at him gratefully before she walked far enough away so that Percy and Annabeth could talk in private.

Solara leaned against the railing and looked out over the water. It was late, or early depending on how you looked at it, and even though the moon was bright, for her there really wasn't enough light to see by. She could just barely hear the hum of Percy and Annabeth's voices, and a part of her wondered what they were talking about, but she got the feeling that it was none of her business.

"Now I'm on my own side, it's better than being on your side. It's my fault when you're blind, it's better that I see it through your eyes. All these thoughts locked inside, now you're the first to know." This song was kind of depressing to her, but with her moods the way they were right now, at least all she was doing was singing and not anything else.

"All American Rejects?" Annabeth asked as she walked up and leaned against the railing next to her. "That's kind of depressing."

"Probably," Solara agreed.

"Percy went to lay down for a bit," Annabeth said, "He's pretty sure that the ship will keep going on it's own while he sleeps."

"Useful," Solara said, "You ever get envious of all of the powers that kids of the Big Three can have?"

Annabeth snorted. "More than I'd like to admit to," she said with a small grin, "Don't get me wrong, I like my mom, but it'd be kind of cool if I could throw lightning like Thalia could."

"Or heal yourself by jumping in water like Percy can?" Solara asked.

"That would definitely be cool," Annabeth said.

"It'd be cooler if he could heal others with it like Katara could," Solara said with a grin.

Annabeth nodded. "Oh yeah, that would be awesome."

One of the funnier lines popped into her head, and she burst out laughing. "And this is Katara, my flying sister," she said when Annabeth gave her a confused look.

Annabeth laughed as well. "My first girlfriend turned into the moon," she said when she had calmed down a bit.

"That's rough buddy," Solara finished.

They managed to look each other in the eye for about five seconds before they cracked up laughing.

"It is my firm belief," Solara said when they both had calmed down, "That that show is pure gold."

"It wasn't bad," Annabeth said.

Solara gave her a brief judging look. "I am not Toph," she said, "I am MELONLORD!"

"Okay," Annabeth laughed, "It was great! But we should probably stop so that Percy can sleep."

Solara snickered and nodded. "Sounds fine with me."

They walked back over to the helm just in case they had to steer the ship themselves. They talked a bit, not really about anything in particular, it was just so that they had something to fill the silence with. They eventually ran out of safe topics though, and neither wanted to go into anything heavy so they lapsed into silence.

"Do you know any _happy_ songs?" Annabeth asked about ten minutes into their shared silence.

"Sure," Solara said, "But most of them are Christian though."

"Seriously?" Annabeth asked, shocked.

"Yep," Solara nodded, "The others are from musicals."

"Huh," Annabeth muttered, "You don't look like the type to listen to Christian music."

Solara grinned and began to sing. "Your love has called my name. What do I have to fear? What do I have to fear? Your love has called my name. What do I have to fear? What do I have to fear? If you can hold the stars in place, you can hold my heart the same. Whenever I fall away, whenever I start to break. So here I am lifting up my heart. If you can calm the raging sea, you can calm the storm in me. You're never too far away, you never show up too late. So here I am lifting up my heart, to the one who holds the stars. You're the one who holds the stars." She sighed. "Okay, that was more hopeful than happy, but that's close enough, yes?"

Annabeth shrugged. "Close enough," she agreed, "It was good too."

"Thanks," Solara said, "I think that John and Jen sang it better though."

"Original artists?"

"Yeah, the band's called Skillet."

"Got another song?"

Solara laughed. "Yeah," she said, "I've got all of the songs." she thought for a minute before one popped into her head. "Got one, it's still Christian, but not as obvious."

She cleared her throat and began to sing again. "The air is cold tonight, there's gunpowder in my eyes. This is the eve of battle, yes. I left my other life behind, all I can see is the front line. This is the eve of battle." She tossed Annabeth a grin, the part of 'I left my other life behind' really fit her situation. She then decided to skip to the second verse. "The drummer boy's getting ready. I'm trying to keep my hands steady. This is the dawn of battle, yes. I've never been this afraid. Forgot my family and my name. This is the dawn of battle." Solara again decided to skip the chorus. "Every second counts as the clock ticks back and forth. Time is running out, tell me do you know for sure, who you are, 'cause you only have one life to live. You only have one life to live." Now it was time for the chorus, and at the last second she added in the pre-chorus as well. "Is this real? This cause that I'm fighting for. Am I real? I don't know anymore. What do I stand for? Am I left, am I right? Am I up and down, am I east, am I west? Do I wear the crown, is my creed worth dying for? What do I live for? Can you tell on my face what my heart beats for? Do the words that I speak show it to the core? Does my glow outshine the stars? Can you see my coat of arms?" Solara was slightly out of breath towards the end, but she was grinning. She honestly loved that song, and it fit her life so well that hearing it or singing it comforted her.

"Wow," was all Annabeth said, "I mean... wow. Just the emotion that you put into that. It was amazing."

Solara laughed. "Again, the original artist was better."

"I doubt that," Annabeth said, "But I'll agree for now."

"Want to hear something else by him? Solara asked, "It won't be as positive, but still a great song."

"Sure, the silence here is creepy."

Solara snorted, but began to sing again. "Love is but a word that you use against me. I've licked every wound, trying to rid myself of all this residue. You left a trace I can't erase, and time and time again. I fell for it." Again she skipped to the second verse. "Time heals every bruise, or so they say. But I'm left feeling used. Trying to bargain with the sense that I have left. You shot a hole, I can't ignore and time and time again. I fell for it. Can you tell me when we both began to fall? Do you lose any sleep over this at all? Now you tell me that it's time to move along. Well I'm gone, now I'm just another headstone in your graveyard. Can you raise me from the dead, and lay my heart to rest, so that I can love again?" She repeated the last line a few times before she sang the chorus again.

"Again, all I can say is wow," Annabeth said.

Solara laughed again at that. "Thanks," she said, "But I'm pretty sure that half of that is due to the song choices."

Annabeth shrugged. "Does it matter? You still earned that 'wow'."

Solara smiled at her. "Thanks," she said.

They talked for a few more hours after that. Solara gave a mini, personal concert towards the end. Then they realized that they were getting close to the Sirens. Annabeth told Solara that she wanted to hear their song, while Solara thought that she was insane, she agreed to help her. They woke Percy and told him the plan. He agreed reluctantly, but he got up and helped them all the same.

Solara and Percy stopped up their ears with candle wax, and then they tied Annabeth to the mast of the ship. Solara was really uncomfortable watching Annabeth tied up as she was, and she turned away from her before they even got into range of the Sirens. She could see Percy shifting uncomfortably out of the corner of her eye, and she knew that Annabeth could now hear the song.

Eventually Percy looked away from Annabeth as well. That was their first mistake.

The second was not disarming Annabeth so that couldn't cut herself free.

Solara glanced over at the mast first. Her eyes widened when she saw an empty mast and cut ropes lying on the floor of the deck. She darted over to Percy, and gestured to the mast when she got his attention. She watched his expression change from shock to horror, and then he turned back to her.

"Stay here." She wasn't sure if he was mouthing the words to her, or if he was actually saying them, but she guessed that in the end it really didn't matter. "I'll go after her."

Solara nodded quickly, and the next thing she knew Percy was diving off of the side of the ship. She ran over and gripped the railing tightly. She knew that Percy would save Annabeth, but waiting after seeing at least one of them dive into dangerous, trap infested water was not her idea of fun. She tried to keep her breathing steady as the ship kept sailing past the island, but she only relaxed after she saw Percy and Annabeth break the surface.

She went over to where the ladder was and helped Annabeth back up, and then turned back to help Percy as well. Once Percy was back on her side of the railing she went over and sat next to Annabeth. She held out a hand to her to let her know that she was there to help her. She had expected Annabeth to maybe hold her hand, or even lean against her, but Annabeth shocked her by throwing herself at Solara and wrapping her arms around her. Not one to deny a hysterical person some comfort, Solara just wrapped her own arms around Annabeth and hugged her back.

Annabeth calmed down a few minutes later and pulled back. She looked Solara in the eye and mouthed 'safe' at her.

Solara nodded and pulled the candle wax earplugs out of her ears. She had actually found the lack of sound really weird, and she hoped that she never had to do that again. The wax had also just plain felt weird when it was in her ears.

"Feel awkward?" Annabeth asked with a weak smile.

"Little bit," Solara said.

"You okay?" Percy asked as he walked over to them and sat down facing them.

Solara would have gotten up and let them talk by themselves, but even though Annabeth wasn't hugging her anymore, she was still leaning against her. So she listened awkwardly as they talked about what the sirens had made Annabeth see. She snorted in amusement when Percy confused hubris with hummus, but she kept silent until Annabeth asked them if they too wanted to start everything over, and build it better than before.

"Me ruling the world would be bad," Percy said shaking his head.

"Haha, nope," Solara said when they both looked at her, "I've screwed up with this war four times already... there is no way any sane person would leave me in charge of anything for longer than an hour."

Percy snorted in amusement. "Tell us how you really feel Solara," he said.

"Everything would be on fire ten minutes into that hour," she said mock-seriously, "Then what would we all do?"

"Well," Percy said with a grin, "I'll make sure that I'll take some fire eating classes before then."

The three of them laughed at that.

"In all seriousness though," Annabeth said when they all calmed down. "You guys are lucky your fatal flaw isn't hubris."

Solara raised her hand. "Stubbornness with a dash of Personal Loyalty," she said unafraid and unashamed of the fact.

"I wasn't aware that stubbornness was on the list," Annabeth said.

Solara shrugged. "It's on my list."

"No," Percy said, "I get that... Stubbornness works for her, because of the jumps."

"Thanks," Solara said dryly, "You fill my heart with warmth because of your words."

"I don't know Percy," Annabeth said, a joking tone to her voice now, "I think that Solara's sarcasm is her fatal flaw."

Percy snickered and nodded. "You're probably right," he said.

"Rude," Solara huffed, but she wasn't actually mad. If joking about her sarcasm helped Annabeth, then she'd deal.

"What's my fatal flaw?" Percy asked a second later.

"No idea," Annabeth said after Solara shrugged uncomfortably, "But every hero has one."

"Learning to control that part of you is actually harder than figuring it out, or even admitting that that's what it is," Solara added.

"So do you feel wiser?" Percy asked Annabeth.

"I don't know," she admitted, "But we have to save camp, and if we don't stop Luke..."

No one wanted to add to or finish that thought. Then they all stood up to hopefully ignore their thoughts of what was going on. Solara saw Annabeth's eyes widen, and she turned to look where Annabeth was staring.

"What the hell... we made it," she muttered.

"Time to save Grover, and get the fleece," Percy said.

"Agreed," Solara and Annabeth said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longest chapter so far! It comes in at 6.1k, hope you guys liked it. :)
> 
> The chapter title comes from the song 'I See the Light' from Tangled.
> 
> Please leave something friendly on your way out. :D


	11. my wings are clipped and burned, can my fate ever be turned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer - See chapter one.  
> Notes - There is an important note at the bottom, be sure to read it.
> 
> Also, thank you to everyone who kudoed! :)

The grass was a lovely shade of green, the air smelled sweet and refreshing, and there were flesh-eating sheep. Solara wanted to know why someone had created flesh-eating sheep. Sheep were not supposed to eat flesh.

"I think I would have preferred another hydra," she muttered, "Or the Winter Soldier... There might actually be a chance of survival with one of them... I doubt that we can beat a flock of carnivorous beasts."

"Winter Soldier?" Annabeth asked.

"You are such a nerd," Percy said with a grin.

"Takes one to know one," she shot back, "Especially since you knew what I was talking about."

Annabeth shook her head at them both, and covered Percy's mouth with her hand when he went to speak again. "Guys!" she said in exasperation, "We don't have time for this! We need to make a plan."

"Well, you aren't going up there on your own," Solara said nodding to the tree the fleece was laying in. "Anything could happen, the sheep could sense you somehow, or another guardian shows up."

"My hat can turn me invisible," Annabeth argued.

Percy reached up and moved Annabeth's hand from his mouth. "Sure," he said, "But if you run into trouble, what are we supposed to do? Watch you die? No, we find another way, and we do this together."

"I agree," Solara added when she glanced her way.

Annabeth sighed. "Okay then," she said, "Then we need to find a way of sneaking up there without risk of detection."

"The cliffs," Solara said, "We can climb up the cliffs."

"Sounds fun," Percy said sarcastically, "Let's do it."

"It's insane," Annabeth said, "But it's also the best chance we've got."

Percy nodded and directed the ship to sail around to the back of the island.

Solara grabbed Annabeth and dragged her back below deck. "We need to change," she said to the confused looks that she was getting. At that Percy and Annabeth realized that Solara and Annabeth were still in the dresses they had put on back on Circe's island. She snickered at their embarrassed looks, and she'd bet anything that both were thankful that the material of Annabeth dress was think enough to not end up see-through after getting thoroughly drenched.

Once below deck Solara dug through her bag to get their clothes back out. She tossed Annabeth her jeans and t-shirt, but told her not to put them on yet. She dug through her bag for a couple of more minutes before she pulled out what she had been looking for. She grinned and tossed a pair of leggings and a long-sleeved shirt to Annabeth.

"Put those on underneath," she said as she pulled out her own set.

"It's eighty degrees out," Annabeth protested.

"I know," Solara said and slipped out of her dress. She stuffed it into her bag and began to get dressed. "They aren't for keeping warm. Besides the runes on them will help to regulate your body temperature."

Annabeth looked skeptical, but she put them on anyway. "Is it some type of armor?" she asked.

"Yep," Solara said, and began to braid her hair back, "It won't do any good against anything sharp, and it won't protect your head, neck, hands, or feet, but it will provide some protection against blunt force trauma." Solara grinned at Annabeth's shocked look. "What?" she said, "It pays to make friends with children of Hecate, and to do favors for Hecate herself. You never know what you might get out of it."

"You really are from another universe," Annabeth muttered in awe.

Solara snorted. "You say that like it's the coolest thing since sliced bread... It really isn't."

Annabeth flinched at her tone as she handed over her dress to be put into Solara's bag. "Sorry," she said softly, "I didn't mean for it to sound like that. I can't even imagine what you've been through. I was just thinking about all of the opportunities I guess."

Solara frowned at that. "I've lived a long life compared to other demigods," she said slowly, "But it hasn't been an easy life, and I recently found out that the person that I had wanted to save the most, I can't save. I'm going to have to watch him die again, and that, is probably the worst thing that I'm going to have to endure, and Annabeth, I've been to Tartarus, not much is worse than that."

Annabeth looked shocked by her last statement, then she got the look on her face that she usually did when she was trying to figure something out. "I'll tell Percy to not tell anyone about you."

Solara grinned at her. "He may already know that," she said, "But thanks."

"You didn't say specifics, and you always do," Annabeth said as they made their way back up to the deck. "I figured that you can't tell anyone anything."

"Not without them swearing an oath to never share or use what I tell them," Solara agreed, "And not many people will do that."

"Who did?"

"My therapist."

"Oh."

They fell silent as they finally reached the deck. Once properly out of the hold they saw that Percy had gotten the ship as close to the cliffs as he possibly could. They wouldn't have to swim very far to get to the cliffs.

The three of them stood in a circle and looked at each other trying to think f something to say. Eventually getting tired of the awkward silence, Solara sighed and turned and climbed onto the railing. "Let's just get this over with," she said to Percy and Annabeth, and then dived into the ocean.

The climb was far from easy. Sure they'd all had their fair share at climbing the rock wall at camp, but this was higher, and there were actually people at the top that they needed to save. Not to mention the giant cyclops that they needed to steal from.

Solara was ridiculously happy once she made it to the ledge at the top of the cliff. She pulled herself over the edge and laid on the ground just breathing for a minute. Then she sat up and helped Annabeth and then Percy up and over as well. She already knew that Polyphemus, Grover, and Clarisse were just yards away, so she didn't bother to jump in surprise when she heard the yelling below them. She did shift around so that she was lying on her stomach, and shifted closer to the edge so that she could see what was happening below.

She rolled her eyes when Clarisse wouldn't shut up, and outed the fact that Grover was a satyr. That was typical of Clarisse, but she would eventually learn to keep her mouth shut. Her eyebrows flew up in surprise when Polyphemus decided to marry Clarisse instead of Grover. That part of the stories were never told, and she figured that either Percy and Annabeth took pity on Clarisse, or they were bribed or blackmailed into keeping their mouths shut. She couldn't wait to find out which is was.

She stayed up on the ledge when Percy and Annabeth climbed down to try and either move the boulder, impossible, or try and get a message to Grover and Clarisse, also impossible. It wasn't that she didn't want to help, but rather she was trying to think of a way to. She knew that she didn't have long to figure it out, so she tried to think as fast as she could. She knew for a fact that there was no way she was going to cling to the underside of a sheep, so she needed to figure out a way to help Annabeth out here. Problem was, she was pretty sure that she'd get caught sooner than Annabeth would. If only they had two invisibility hats.

Solara eyed the trees that were by the entrance to the cave. If she could jump from tree to tree, then she might have a chance. There was even a tall one right up next to the ledge that she was still laying on. If all else failed, she could hop back up onto the ledge, and then hide on the other side of the cliff. It was risky, but so was everything when it came to Polyphemus. No plan was really going to be a 'good' plan.

"I take it, you're putting yourself on 'distracting Polyphemus' duty with me," Annabeth said when she pulled herself up next to Solara.

"I'm allergic to wool," she said, "And that isn't a joke or an excuse to get out of Percy's predicament... I really am allergic."

"Guess you never had a choice then," Annabeth muttered.

"Nope," Solara agreed, "Life is just funny that way."

They stayed up on the ledge and watched for Polyphemus so that they knew when he was coming back. Once he was heading back to the cave, they scrambled off of the ledge and found places to hide. Granted Annabeth didn't really need to, but she did needed to stay out of the way until the sheep made it into the cave. They waited anxiously for most of the sheep to make it into the cave before they made their move.

"Hey ugly!" Annabeth shouted, getting Polyphemus's attention.

"Who said that?"

"Nobody!" Solara shouted, and grinned at Polyphemus's confused look. She was on the opposite side of the clearing as Annabeth after all.

"Nobody! I remember you!" he bellowed, and proceeded to forget to close up the entrance of the cave.

"No you don't," Annabeth shouted from a new location, "you're too stupid to remember anybody, much less Nobody."

Polyphemus roared and threw a boulder where Annabeth's voice had been.

"Pathetic," Solara called out from a new tree, "Your aim is as terrible as your eyesight." She quickly moved to a neighboring tree, and watched as another boulder knocked over the one that she had just vacated.

"Missed me!" Annabeth shouted next.

For the next minute they played a dangerous game of taunting Polyphemus, but it had to end sometime. Solara had run out of cover, and she had just pulled herself up onto the ledge again when she was spotted. She barely had time to register the pain of the boulder crashing into her side before the force of it pushed her over the edge. She saw the water rushing towards her, and she screamed from the pain, and the fear. She was falling again, and like last time, she wasn't sure if she'd survive the fall. There was so much more pain that she knew she was going to experience, and she prayed that someone would save her. This time, they actually could.

She hit the water with so much force that she was sure that most of her bones had shattered on impact. She was quite happy to pass out after that.

*~S~*

"Did I finally die?" she asked when she became aware again. Then the pain hit her again and she groaned. "Never mind, I'm pretty sure that death doesn't feel like this."

"If I have my way," a familiar voice said above her, "You won't die for a very long time."

Solara opened her eyes, and she wasn't very shocked by how much effort that it took. "Triton," she said.

Triton frowned down at her, and then she realized that they were on the deck of the ship that she, Percy, and Annabeth had stolen back on Circe's island. "By all accounts," he said regaining her attention, "You should be dead."

"Guess the clothes came in handy after all," she joked.

"And the fall used all of the magic that they had," Triton said, and he didn't look amused in the slightest, "Honestly Solara, the boulder itself should have killed you, never-mind falling two hundred feet." He shook his head and sighed. "I healed you as best I could," he said, "But you're still pretty hurt."

"Yeah, I feel like shit," Solara agreed. She closed her eyes and muttered a prayer to her father, hoping that it was possible for her to heal herself when she was this injured. She could heal herself when it came to broken bones and stab wounds, but she had never tried to heal herself when half of her bones were shattered. She just counted herself lucky that it wasn't her head that hadn't been hit by that boulder, or had been one of her body parts that had hit the water first.

The pain receded a bit, but not a whole lot. She sighed and opened her eyes again. "How bad is it?" she asked.

Triton sighed. "Pretty bad," he said, "Almost all of your ribs are broken, your collar bone was shattered, but I got it to heal until it was at least only in four parts." He shook his head. "Solara, can you feel your legs at all?"

"Yeah," she said, "Everything hurts, including my legs... Before you ask, I'll try to move them." She took a deep breath and shifted one leg at a time. It hurt like all hell, but they moved. She smiled up at him. "I'll be fine," she said, "Once all of this heals up."

"Do you have any ambrosia?" he asked, "I used the water to heal you, so unless your own healing interacts badly with it, you can still have some."

"It's in my bag," she said, and tried to sit up, but the pain in her body flared so sharply at the movement that she stopped and rested against the deck. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, willing the wave of nausea to pass.

"Don't move," Triton snapped, "I'll get it for you, just tell me where it is."

"Front pocket," she said through gritted teeth, "Have I already given you permission to go through my bag?"

"Yeah," he said, and he pulled over her bag and began to look in the pocket that she said had ambrosia in it. A second later he pulled out the Ziploc baggie that had the stash of ambrosia in it. He opened it and broke off a square for her. "Here," he said and held it to her lips.

She took it with her teeth and just let it dissolve in her mouth. While it was still melting the boat began to sail around the island. "Guess they need a quick get-away," she muttered.

"Probably," Triton agreed with a sigh, "I have to go though. I could only interfere to save you, but I can't do anything else."

"It's okay," she said, "I know more about those laws than they do. I get that you can't help us."

He gave her a tired smile, and leaned over to kiss her forehead before he disappeared.

She sighed after he left. She might understand, but she certainly didn't have to like it. Her spine was still pretty damaged, but she sat up and pulled out another small piece of ambrosia. It was pushing what was safe for her to eat, but with all of her broken bones, she needed it to heal enough to move without passing out from pain. As the second piece dissolved in her mouth, she just tried to enjoy the taste of her mother's peanut butter cookies.

She sighed in relief when she could move her arms and legs with only needing to wince. She could still feel that her spine and pelvis were still pretty messed up, but as long as she didn't need to walk for another few hours, she'd be fine. Her ribs and collar bone hadn't healed at all, but she had focused her own healing on her arms and legs, and ambrosia always targeted the worst damage to heal. A demigod could live with a broken arm, but a stab wound in their gut would kill them, so the ambrosia would heal the stab wound over the broken arm every time.

Solara stuffed the ambrosia back into her bag, and zipped the pocket shut again. She made sure that every zipper was closed before she looped a strap around her arm and laid back down. There really wasn't anything else she could do, so she rested while she could. Her eyes drifted closed and she focused on her hearing. When she heard Polyphemus yelling in the distance, she knew that things were about to speed up for her again.

She heard a loud splash and sighed again. Then she heard some of the others climbing up the side of the ship. She opened her eyes in time to Annabeth pulling herself over the side with the fleece wrapped around her. Clarisse was right behind her, and she pulled herself over the edge quickly and steadied Annabeth when she swayed a bit. Grover pulled himself up and over next, and when he caught sight of her, he blinked in surprise.

She grinned and struggled to sit up again. "I know," she said, causing Clarisse and Annabeth to jerk in surprise, "I look good for someone who should be dead."

"How?" Annabeth gaped for a second before she realized what must have happened. "Triton," she said, and limped over towards her with help from Grover, "And the enchanted clothes."

"Yes to both," Solara said, and she only just managed to suppress the sigh of relief when Annabeth sat next to her and threw one end of the fleece over her so that both of them could heal. "Thanks," she said.

Then all three of them jumped when Clarisse began to yell back at Polyphemus. Solara attempted to lurch to her feet, but all she did was cry out in pain, and then fall back to the deck. Both actions had jarred her ribs, spine, pelvis, and collar bone, and now all she could focus on was the pain that moving too quickly and falling had caused.

The vibration of the next boulder slamming into the hull of the ship made her groan. She didn't even bother to try and fight against the wild tilting of the ship as it began to fill with water and sink. She and Annabeth were separated, but she didn't care. She could live just fine without the fleece healing her the rest of the way, Annabeth couldn't.

Solara slammed into something hard, but she wasn't quite sure what it was. A couple of minutes later, they were all underwater anyway. She made sure to take a deep breath in before she was fully submerged, but it didn't last long. Her ribs were screaming in pain from being expanded the way they were, and her collar bone protested the weight of her bag on her shoulders and her attempts to swim towards the surface. She knew that they were going to be saved, but with how crappy she felt, she wondered if she'd even stay conscious until then.

She let her breath go. It hurt too much to keep a hold of it anyway. She watched as the bubbles streamed from her mouth, and just as she was about to give in and breathe in water, she felt something or someone grab he bag and drag her towards the surface. She gasped for air when her head was back above the water.

Looking over she saw that it had been Rainbow that had dragged her to the surface. She grinned at the hippocampus and pulled herself up onto it. It sped off towards where Percy and Tyson were. Another hippocampus carrying Annabeth was a few feet in front of her, and both hippocampi stopped in front of Percy and Tyson long enough for them to climb on before they sped off again.

Despite the smooth ride over the water, Solara was in pain from sitting the way she was. She lasted a few minutes before she slumped backwards and passed out again.

*~S~*

Solara woke up a few hours later. Her pelvis and collar bone had healed for the most part, and her spine and ribs were still damaged in places, but not bad enough to make standing or walking difficult. Riding the hippocampus still hurt like all hell, but it was better than before. They hadn't quite made it to Florida yet, but she guessed that they were close. She said another prayer to her father to try and heal her spine a little more, but it barely worked.

She sighed in irritation, but didn't bother to do more than that.

"I'm fine," she said when Tyson asked if she was alright, "I'm pretty beat up, but I'm healing." She didn't go into specifics. She didn't want anyone to worry about her, and maybe that was a little messed up, but she wasn't used to so many people caring about her.

Neither talked again until they reached the harbor in Miami.

Solara swallowed her groans of pain as they all swam to shore. Her ribs hated the movement, and she hated the fact that her ribs were refusing to heal faster than they were. She was happy to walk again once they were back on land.

She hung to the back of the group as they walked through the harbor and made their way to the main streets. She'd been here before, but it had been years, she had forgotten how crazy it was. The tourists alone were bad enough, but the locals weren't helping matters by rushing across their path every few feet, and arguing with each other in Spanish.

She understood most of what they were saying to each other too, and she had to bite her lip more than once to stop herself from laughing out loud. None of it was anything she wanted to translate to the others, so she needed to keep her mouth shut.

They eventually found a place where they could just stand and talk to each other without someone yelling at them to move. Solara wasn't sure when Luke was going to show up, but she hoped that they could get Clarisse packed into a taxi soon, because standing around exposed like they were with the fleece, it wasn't their best idea ever.

"We've been away from camp for ten days!" Annabeth exclaimed when they found a newspaper that someone had dropped.

"That's impossible," Clarisse said.

"Not really," Solara muttered, and she was lucky that she hadn't been heard by anyone.

"Thalia's tree must be almost dead by now," Grover said, "We need to get the fleece back to New York tonight."

"How?" Clarisse snapped, "We're hundreds of miles away. We have no money, no ride, this is just like the Oracle said. This is all your fault Jackson, if you hadn't interfered –"

"Percy's fault?" Annabeth snapped, "Clarisse, how can you say that?"

"Stop it!" Solara and Percy shouted.

"Now is the time to be pointing fingers," Solara continued, "Now, Clarisse, please tell us what the Oracle said to you." she might have phrased it politely, but everyone heard the order in her tone. She wasn't in the mood to deal with the blame game, and they needed to get the fleece to camp.

Clarisse took a deep breath and then recited the prophecy that she had been given. "You shall sail the iron ship with warriors of bone, you shall find what you seek and make it your own, but despair for your life entombed within stone, and fail without friends, to fly home alone."

Solara winced. It really did sound bad. No wonder most sane people despised prophecies, they were possibly the vaguest thing that existed, and they foretold the future. As if the future wasn't a messy subject in itself.

"No," Percy muttered, "I think I get it... Does anyone have any cash?"

Solara swung her bag off of her shoulder and knelt down to dig through it. She heard Percy and Tyson talking next to her, and by the time she pulled out a roll of twenties, Tyson had also handed over a bag of cash from the bags that Hermes had packed for them in the beginning. She held out her money as well. "Here," she said, "There's at least three hundred here."

Percy nodded to her gratefully, and then he took both wads of money and stuffed it in the pocket of the jacket that the fleece had been disguised as. He handed it over to Clarisse and dragged her over to a taxi. "Come one, you have to go on by yourself. It's the only way to get you to camp in time."

"He's right," Solara said when Clarisse looked doubtful, "There's really only enough money for one ticket, and Percy, Tyson and I can't fly anyway. It has to be you. It was your quest, and your prophecy said that you'd fail without friends to get home."

Clarisse looked at both of them skeptically before she nodded and got into the taxi.

Solara grinned to herself as she watched the taxi speed away. She closed her bag again and swung it back up on her shoulders. She was happy that they had gotten the fleece, and that they had gotten Clarisse to trust them enough to not question why they were letting her take all of the credit.

"Percy," Annabeth said, "That was..."

"Generous?" Grover offered.

"Insane," Annabeth said instead.

"She can do it," Solara and Percy defended, "It was her quest anyway."

"Percy is nice," Tyson said with a big smile.

"Percy is too nice," Annabeth grumbled.

Solara snorted. "He's just the right amount of nice," she said while rolling her eyes at her.

"Come on," Percy said trying to change the subject, "Let's find another way home."

Solara and Percy turned around to see a sword point inches away from their throats. They froze and looked at Luke in shock. He hadn't even made any kind of noise while sneaking up on them, and they wondered how much he had heard. They traded looks, there was no way that this was going to end well.

"Hey cuz," Luke said with a sneer.

This definitely was not going to end well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cackles* Sorry I'm not sorry about that. It was just too good to resist though. XD
> 
> The chapter title is from the song 'Mockingbird' by Jonathan Thulin.
> 
> Please leave a friendly comment on your way out. (Or yell at me for the cliffhanger, I'll probably giggle over your flailing. :))
> 
> IMPORTANT NOTICE!
> 
> This story is going on temporary hiatus as of now. I don't have another chapter ready, and with how many hours I'm scheduled to work, I doubt I'd have another one by Thursday anyway. Things should calm down after the back-to-school rush is over, but until then, I'm barely keeping up with sleep, so more chapters are not going to happen for awhile.
> 
> Sorry about this. See you all when I can finish another chapter. :)


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